THE 


PRINCIPLE  OF  SYNTHETIC  UNITY 
IN  BERKELEY  AND  KANT. 


BY 
SAMUEL   M.   DICK,   A.M.,   PH.D. 


LOWELL,   MASS.: 

MORNING  MAIL  COMPANY  PRINT. 

1898. 


PEEFAOE. 


This  little  volume  was  prepared  as  a  thesis  for  the  degree 
of  Doctor  of  Philosophy  in  the  University  of  Michigan.  By 
the  advice  of  Dr.  John  Dewey  I  have  undertaken  to  interpret 
the  Metaphysical  Notes  of  Berkeley's  Commonplace  Book, 
and  as  far  as  possible  discover  the  Principle  of  Unity  which 
occasionally  manifests  itself  in  Berkeley's  works  and  which 
formed  a  basis  for  a  "Treatise  on  the  Will"  which  Berkeley 
contemplated  but  never  produced. 

I  wish  to  express  my  indebtedness  to  Dr.  Dewey  for  his 
assistance  in  the  selection  of  collateral  reading  and  for  his 
suggestions  in  the  development  of  the  thesis.  No  literature 
could  be  secured  bearing  upon  the  interpretation  of  the  Notes, 
hence  the  Notes  have  been  classified  and  such  as  bear  upon 
the  theme  under  discussion  have  been  used.  Often  the 
phraseology  has  been  preserved  but  where  that  could  not  be 
done  the  thought  has  been  expressed  in  phraseology  as  nearly 
Berkeleian  as  the  author  could  select  so  as  to  preserve  the 
unity  that  runs  through  the  Notes. 

This  principle  of  unity  found  in  Berkely  has  been  compared 
and  contrasted  with  the  Unity  of  Kant. 

s.  M.  D. 


260900 


CONTENTS. 


Page 

Introduction I 

I. 

THE  WILL  AS  SEEN  IN  BERKELEY'S  COMMONPLACE  BOOK. 

1.  The  Commonplace  Book. 3 

a.  Source  of  authority 3 

b.  Basis  for  a  broader  philosophy 4 

c.  The  period  in  which  Berkeley  lived 5 

i*.    The  new  question 6 

d.  Berkeley's  hope  in  establishing  the  principle.     ...  6 

i'.     Berkeley  not  satisfied  with  his  philosophy.      .        .  7 

2.  The  Will  Defined. 

a.  The  abstract  of  the  Will 7 

b.  The  concrete  of  the  Will 8 

c.  The  Will  a  pure  activity 9 

i'.     Berkeley's  approach  to  the  modern  idea.         .        .  9 

d.  The  difficulties  in  treating  the  Will 10 

3.  The  Will  and  the  Understanding n 

4.  What  Wills  and  how? n 

5.  Connection  with  the  Divine  Will 12 

II. 
WILL,  A  SYNTHETIC  ELEMENT  OR  ACTIVITY. 

i.     The  Process  of  Knowledge. 

a.  What  Berkeley  attempts 14 

b.  The  source  of  knowledge 16 

i'.     Sensations. 16 

2'.     Thoughts 17 

c.  Objects  of  conscious  experience 18 

i'.     First  element 18 

2       Second  element. 18 


VI 


Page 

3'.     Elements  discussed 21 

a\     Perception.  21 

i".     Kant's  schematism  foreshadowed.       .        .  21 

2".     Imagination  not  a  synthetic  element.        .  22 

3".     Substantiality  in  the  Material  World.        .  23 

^  4".     Permanence  necessary  to  perception.         .  25 

_,  b\     Conception 25 

i".     Berkeley's  dualism 27 

The  Will's  function  in  knowledge. 28 

a.     Berkeley  influenced  by  Descartes 30 

bm    Will — The  source  of  the  modes  of  knowledge.  ...  30 

c.  How  Will  becomes  a  synthetic  activity 31  . 

d.  Will  in  a  disjunctive  judgment.    .        .        ....  32 

e.  Will  the  underlying  unity 33 

f.    Berkeley  compared  with  Bowne 35 

Bodies  exist  without  the  mind 35 

a.  No  experience  without  existing  bodies 35 

b.  Existence  of  bodies  not  a  fancy. 37 

c.  Three  theories  for  the  existence  of  the  Universe.       .        .  38 

i'.     Abstractly  objective 38 

2'.     Abstractly  subjective. 38 

3'.     Dynamic  inter-relation 39 

4'.     To  which  does  Berkeley  belong?      ....  39 

d.  Berkeley's  later  philosophy. 40 

Knowledge  and  Reason. 

a.  Transition  to  Reason 42 

b.  Reason — "Nature  immersed  in  matter."        ....  45 

c.  Morris  on  Berkeley 45 

d.  Berkeley's  Reason  like  that  of  Kant 46 

III. 
KANT'S  TRANSCENDENTAL  EGO. 

The  Transcendental  Ego  defined 47 

a.  Not  a  concept 47 

b.  Terms  applied  to  it 47 

c.  The  starting  place  of  metaphysics 48 


VII 

Page 

d,  Descartes'  cogito  ergo  sum.     .' 49 

e.  Kant's  criticism 51 

/.     The  Transcendental  and  the  Empirical  Ego.       ...  52 

g.    The  relation  of  the  Transcendental  Ego  to  the  Noumenon.  53 

2.  The  function  of  the  Transcendental  Self  in  knowledge.       .         .  56 

a.  Robert  Adamson's  comment 56 

b.  Concreteness  implied  in  Kant's  analytic  thought         .         .  57 

c.  The  Ego  not  a  power  of  theoretical  cognition.    ...  58 

d.  Necessity  founded  on  transcendental    conditions.         .         .  59 

e.  Thought  and  the  manifold  united 60 

3.  Summary. 

a.  Sources  of  confusion 62 

b.  Categories  as  tools '-'•'.  63 

c.  Something  given  to  thought 64 

d.  Kant's  treatment  of  thought  and  the  manifold.           .         .  65 

IV. 

POINTS  OF  RESEMBLANCE  AND  DIFFERENCE  COMPARED 
AND  CONTRASTED. 

j.     Defects  Considered. 

a.  '  Berkeley  entitled  to  more  credit  than  received.  .        .      67 

-7  b.     Chief  point  of  failure 67 

-r  c.     Berkeley  failed  to  use  the  dialectic.      .        .        .        .        .68 

^  d.     Kant's  advance  on  Berkeley 69 

e.  Defects  in  Kant's  system .70 

2.  Similarities  pointed  out 71 

a.  Specific  likenesses.          ! 72 

b.  Synthetic  activity  in  experience 74 

c.  Difference  that  of  induction  and  deduction.         .        .        -75 

3.  Differences  pointed  out.  77 

a.  Their  dualism 78 

b.  Summary.          ..........       79 

4.  Conclusion. '.         .         .         -79 

Bibliography 81 


THE   PRINCIPLE   OF   SYNTHETIC   UNITY 
IN   BERKELEY  AND   KANT. 


Every  student  of  modern  philosophy  gives  to  Kant 
the  credit  of  formulating  and  developing  a  synthetic 
principle  in  knowledge,  which  prior  to  Kant  had  re- 
ceived little  or  no  attention.  There  is  no  doubt  the 
credit  is  properly  placed ;  the  very  nature  of  philosophy 
is  to  have  a  system  ;  philosophy  is  a  system ;  but  before 
there  is  a  development  there  must  be  a  movement  of 
thought  through  various  stages.  These  stages,  accor- 
ding to  advanced  modern  logic,  are  three  in  number 
and  are  represented  by  three  forms  of  judgment,  viz., 
the  categorical,  the  hypothetical  and  the  disjunctive. 
The  first  of  these  judgments  is  the  statement  of  a  fact ; 
the  second,  the  statement  of  a  fact  under  certain  limi- 
tations and  conditions ;  the  third,  the  statement  of  a 
fact  with  all  the  conditions  overcome  and  realized. 
It  may  be  said  that  through  the  movement  of  thought 
in  modern  philosophy,  Berkeley's  forecast  of  the  Will 
is  the  categorical  judgment  concerning  the  synthetic 
principle  or  activity  in  knowledge,  that  Kant's  Critique 
of  Pure  Reason  is  the  hypothetical  judgment,  and 
Hegel's  Philosophy  is  the  disjunctive  judgment. 


The  work  of  this  paper  is  to  discover,  if  possible, 
whether  such  a  relation  exists,  i.  e.,  to  compare,  as 
synthetic  activities  in  knowledge,  the  active  principle 
of  Will  as  seen  in  Berkeley's  Commonplace  Book  with 
the  Transcendental  Ego  of  Kant's  Critique  of  Pure 
Reason.  The  author  will,  therefore,  in  the  develop- 
ment of  Berkeley's  principle  of  Will,  reserve  the  right 
to  use  Kantian  phraseology  where  it  seems  best  and 
where  it  precisely  expresses  the  Berkelean  thought. 

The  subject  will  be  treated  under  the  following  heads  : 

I.     The  Will   as   seen   in    Berkeley's    Commonplace 
Book. 

II.     The  Will  a  Synthetic  Activity  in  Knowledge. 

III.  Kant's  use  of  the  Transcendental  Unity  of  Apper- 

ception. 

IV.  Points  of  Resemblance  and  Difference  Compared 

and  Contrasted. 


I. 


THE    WILL    AS    SEEN    IN    BERKELEY'S    COMMONPLACE 

BOOK. 


In  developing  the  philosophy  of  the  Commonplace 
Book,  a  brief  reference  to  the  sources  of  material  will 
be  necessary  to  show  the  character  of  the  philosophical 
study  of  Berkeley  in  preparing  for  the  production  of  the 
works  he  has  left  to  us.  The  Commonplace  Book  was 
published  for  the  first  time  in  1871,  edited  by  Alexander 
Campbell  Fraser,  of  the  University  of  Edinburgh.  It 
consists  of  an  unclassified  collection  of  metaphysical 
thoughts  expressed  almost  entirely  in  single  sentences, 
which  represent  the  suggestions  of  the  author's  mind  as 
he  read  many  philosophical  works  and  pondered  over 
the  subjects  he  contemplated  developing.  Some  of 
these  subjects  he  did  develop,  while  others  lie  hidden  in 
the  thoughts  of  the  Commonplace  Book.  It  is  the  ob- 
ject of  this  investigation  to  trace  out  some  of  those 
hidden  lines  of  thought,  and,  if  possible,  to  discover 
Berkeley's  theory  of  the  human  will  and  the  part  it 
plays,  as  a  unifying  activity,  in  a  system  of  knowledge. 

The  references  named  in  the  Commonplace  Book  are 
so  numerous  and  comprehensive  that  it  relieves  the  stu- 
dent of  much  laborious  effort  to  find  the  sources  of  study 
which  enabled  Berkeley  to  form  his  conceptions.  He 


makes  frequent  reference  to  the  leading  mathematicians 
of  the  day,  and  his  frequent  and  specific  references  to 
Locke  show  him  to  have  been  thoroughly  master  of 
Locke's  philosophical  position  on  every  phase  of  the 
Human  Understanding.  He  also  makes  many  and 
familiar  references  to  Descartes,  Malebranche,  Hobbes, 
Spinoza,  Newton,  and  others.  He  was  also  familiar 
with  Aristotle  and  Plato. 

A  basis  is  laid  in  the  Commonplace  Book  for  a 
broader  foundation  of  philosophical  research  and  devel- 
opment than  is  found  in  the  Principles.  The  mere 
matter  of  solving  the  problem  which  arose  from  the 
misconception  of  the  material  universe  was  not  all  that 
Berkeley  meant  to  do.  He  anticipated  the  period  of 
critical  philosophy  which  was  to  follow  and  proposed  to 
lay  a  metaphysical  basis  for  the  purpose  of  robbing  his 
critics  of  all  opportunity  of  taking  a  deep  hold  on  him. 
He  meant  to  leave  no  weak  place  of  attack  from  which 
his  critics  might  succeed  in  dethroning  him  or  in  driving 
him  from  the  position  which  he  so  manfully  maintained. 
In  order  to  accomplish  this,  he  deemed  "A  Treatise  on 
the  Human  Will"  necessary  and  proceeded  to  lay  the 
foundation  for  the  same.  This  treatise  of  the  will 
would  have  proved  too  narrow  for  his  ontological  inves- 
tigation ;  so  he  proposed  to  look  into  the  mind  and  its 
faculties  in  a  broader  sense,  and  has  laid  the  fundamen- 
tal principles  for  this  broader  metaphysical  development 
in  the  Commonplace  Book.  It  is  my  purpose  in  this 
discussion  to  show  what  was  Berkeley's  conception  of 


the  Will  as  proposed  in  the  contemplated  treatise  and  to 
show,  as  far  as  possible,  how  he  meant  to  apply  the 
will  in  his  ultimate  theory  of  knowledge.  To  reach  the 
conclusion  desired  in  the  premises  laid  down,  a  sum- 
ming up  of  the  philosophical  tendencies  of  Berkeley's 
time  will  be  necessary  to  the  introduction  of  this  dis- 
cussion. 

Berkeley  lived  in  a  period  when  philosophers  were 
analyzing  Matter  from  every  possible  point  of  view, 
and  with  varied  success  were  attempting  to  explain  its 
existence.  The  " Abstractly  Objective  Theory"  was 
prevalent.  A  * 'thing"  must  exist  into  which,  as  it  were, 
the  qualities,  primary  and  secondary,  were  stuck ;  but 
when  these  qualities  were  pulled  out  of  the  * 'thing" 
nothing  was  left,  at  least  nothing  that  was  knowable. 
This  gave  rise  to  material  scepticism,  and  Berkeley 
realized  that  this  scepticism  of  matter  was  leading  to 
scepticism  of  reality  of  every  sort.  The  failure  of 
Locke,  Malebranche,  Descartes,  and  others  to  explain 
and  define  matter  gave  rise  to  the  idea  that  matter  might 
be  even  a  cause1  of  consciousness  ;  and  one  philoso- 
pher3 went  so  far  as  to  explain  the  existence  of  the 
mind  by  the  body,  or  to  show  that  the  body  was  a  suffi- 
cient cause  for  the  explanation  of  the  existence  of  the 
mind.  Other  philosophers3  advocated  theories  not  less 
objectionable  to  Berkeley.  These  theories  must  be  re- 
futed and  something  more  rational  and  more  satisfactory 
substituted  for  them.  The  mere  overthrowing  of  a 

1  Locke.        *  Hobbes.        '  Spinoza  and  Leibnitz. 


theory  without  substituting  something  more  rational  for 
it,  does  not  lessen  the  tendencies  to  scepticism ;  it  only 
makes  them  greater.  Foreseeing  this,  Berkeley  aimed 
to  introduce  a  new  theory  and  then  to  defend  his  theory 
against  all  assaults  from  either  contemporaries  or  suc- 
cessors. The  first  thing  was  to  get  the  new  question  of 
the  reality  of  matter  before  the  minds  of  philosophers ; 
to  this  end  he  struggled  long  and  hard,  and  we  may  say 
during  his  life,  almost  in  vain.  It  was  with  this  lever 
that  Berkeley  moved  modern  thought.  He  changed 
the  whole  channel  of  inquiry  about  matter,  as  well  as 
the  current  of  thought  concerning  it.  How  was  this 
change  made  and  by  what  argument  was  the  theory 
sustained?  The  theory  was  that  matter  was  a  result  of 
mental  operations ;  that  matter  only  existed  in  the 
mind,  or  rather  that  matter  could  not  exist  without  the 
mind. 

Could  Berkeley  but  establish  this  important  doctrine 
and  at  the  same  time  prove  the  existence  of  spiritual 
substance,  and  thus  with  an  unassumed  premise  explain 
cause  and  effect,  the  mists  of  scepticism  would  vanish. 
There  would  no  longer  be  left  any  room  for  doubt ; 
there  would  no  longer  be  any  philosophical  problem 
for  the  materialists  and  idealists  to  quibble  over.  The 
conclusion  would  be  final.  To  this  end  Berkeley  pro- 
duced his  "Principles  of  Human  Knowledge."  Nearly 
all  the  fundamental  thoughts  of  the  Principles  are  found 
in  the  Commonplace  Book,  but  no  argument.  By 
tracing  the  argument  through  the  Principles  and  com- 


paring  it  with  the  philosophical  reasonings  of  the  Siris, 
we  notice  a  marked  change  in  the  psychology.1  There 
are  indications  also  that  Berkeley  was  not  thoroughly 
satisfied  with  the  metaphysical  aspect  of  his  Principles. 
This  may  be  the  key  to  the  explanation  why  he  never 
developed  the  metaphysical  principles  laid  down  in  his 
Commonplace  Book.  Indeed,  I  think  we  shall  discover 
before  we  have  finished  that  there  were  certain  points 
concerning  the  will  and  other  faculties  of  the  mind  that 
he  could  not  define  to  his  own  satisfaction  and  at  the 
same  time  defend  the  doctrines  set  forth  in  his  philosophy 
as  handed  down  to  us. 

Could  Berkeley  have  carried  his  point  there  would 
have  been  nothing  left  for  him  to  do  but  to  establish  the 
doctrines  of  the  divinity  as  he  understood  them  and  thus 
have  utterly  demolished  the  "minute  philosophers." 

Having  said  so  much  by  way  of  explanation,  let  us  ex- 
amine Berkeley's  position  with  respect  to  the  human  will. 

Berkeley's  new  idea  of  matter  made  it  necessary  for 
him  to  put  a  new  interpretation  upon  the  functions  of 
the  will.  The  soul,  properly  speaking,  is  the  will,  and 
as  such  is  distinct  from  idea  ;  that  is,  it  cannot  be  classed 
with  phenomena,  and  hence  remains  a  mere  abstrac- 
tion, and  as  an  abstraction  is  absolutely  unknowable; 
not  unknowable  in  the  sense  that  it  is  an  unthinkable 
"thing"  or  essence,  but  unknowable  in  the  sense  that 
there  can  be  no  idea  formed  of  it,  it  would  at  once 
become  an  idea  itself  which  from  the  very  nature  of 

1  Siris  Sec.  303. 


8 

spirit  or  of  spirit-substance  is  absurd  and  a  contradiction 
of  terms.  We  are  imposed  upon  by  the  words  will, 
determine,  agent,  free,  can,  etc.  To  Berkeley  words 
meant  something,  and  the  meaningless  use  to  which 
many  philosophers  have  put  the  above  words  has  led  us 
into  many  errors ;  will  is  not  an  idea  and  indeed  can- 
not be,  and  when  it  is  made  synonymous  with  words 
which  do  represent  ideas,  it  leads  us  into  conflicting 
judgments  and  inflicts  upon  us  impositions  which  are  in 
no  way  excusable. 

Let  us,  therefore,  emphasize  the  fact  that  this  un- 
known substratum,  this  abstract  something,  which  un- 
derlies all  volition  and  all  ideas,  is  something  whereof 
we  know  not,  neither  indeed  is  there  any  other  being 
which  has  or  can  have  an  idea  of  it,  for  just  as  soon  as 
it  becomes  reducible  to  the  mere  possibility  of  being 
known  in  the  sense  of  an  idea  it  ceases  to  be  a  will  at 
all  and  we  contradict  ourselves  by  calling  it  so.  Berke- 
ley, therefore,  emphasizes  the  fact  that  "The  Spirit — 
the  active  thing  —  that  which  is  Soul  and  God  —  is  the 
Will  alone.  The  ideas  are  effects  —  impotent  things." 

The  concrete  of  the  will  and  the  understanding  taken 
together  may  be  called  the  mind,  not  the  person.  The 
definition  of  person  is  entirely  omitted,  but  the  idea 
implied  that  should  we  make  the  concrete  of  the  will 
and  understanding  equal  to  person  we  introduce  a 
second  volitionating  being  or  power  into  the  world  ;  but 
this  is  contradictory  to  the  acknowledged  conception  of 
but  one  volitionating  being,  viz.  God. 


The  will,  says  Berkeley,  is  "purus  actus,  or  rather 
pure  spirit,  not  imaginable,  not  sensible,  not  intelligi- 
ble, in  nowise  the  object  of  the  understanding,  and 
in  nowise  perceivable  ;"  its  properties  are  immortality  and 
incorruptibility,  and  its  substance  is  to  act,  to  cause, 
to  will,  to  operate.  Its  substance  is  not  knowable. 
It  is  seen  from  what  precedes  that  it  is  soul,  is  God, 
and  yet  dependent  upon  God,  i.  e.,  that  God  is  the 
only  being  in  whom  is  vested  the  power  of  originat- 
ing volitions,  but  that  there  is  a  synthetic  unity  of 
the  human  and  divine  wills  which  renders  them  ab- 
solutely inseparable.  The  moment  the  human  will 
becomes  a  unity  in  itself  and  entirely  disconnected  from 
the  divine  will,  it  becomes  a  thing  of  which  an  idea 
can  be  formed  and  therefore  an  idea,  and  thus  ceases 
to  be  a  will  at  all ;  yet  as  it  is,  it  is  a  will,  in  as 
much  as  it  has  the  power  of  placing  if  not  of  abso- 
lutely originating  volitions. 

Berkeley  was  not  satisfied  with  the  scholastique 
term,  "pure  act''  for  the  will,  but  substituted  pure 
spirit,  or  active  being  from  which  I  interpret  him  as 
approaching  nearer  to  the  Leibnitzian  idea  that  will 
is  not  mere  activity  in  general  but  that  it  is  activity 
toward  some  definite  end.1  He  again  approaches  the 
idea  of  modern  philosophy  in  his  attempt  to  give  the 
concrete  of  the  will.  In  his  reasoning  he  approaches 
that  point  where  his  conclusions  would  lead  him  to 
say  that  the  will  psychologically  speaking  is  the  per- 

1  Leibnitz's  Essay  on  Human  Understanding.     By  John  Dewey. 


10 

son  ;  this  was  Berkeley's  thought  yet  he  did  not  say 
it,  for  the  simple  reason  that  he  was  not  absolutely 
sure  of  his  premises,  and  he  was  careful  to  guard 
his  statements  lest  a  Hume  should  come  after  him. 
More  recent  philosophers  have  said  it.  "The  will  is 
the  man,  psychologically  speaking."1  It  is  interest- 
ing, however,  to  see  how  nearly  Berkeley  approached 
this  idea  and  then  shrank  from  expressing  himself 
lest  he  could  not  defend  his  doctrine. 

The  difficulties  in  treating  the  will  are  not  a  few 
says  Berkeley,  and  the  great  causes  of  perplexity  and 
darkness  arise  from  the  fact  that  we  imagine  the 
will  to  be  an  object  of  thought ;  we  think  we  may 
perceive  it,  contemplate  it,  turn  it  this  way  and  that, 
view  it,  and  examine  it  as  we  would  any  object  or 
any  of  our  ideas,  whereas  in  truth  it  is  no  idea, 
neither  is  there  nor  can  there  be  any  idea  of  it.  If 
you  say  the  will,  or  rather  the  volition,  is  a  "thing," 
there  is  an  ambiguity  arises  in  the  use  of  the  word 
"thing"  as  applied  to  will  and  to  idea.  We  may 
conclude  therefore  that  the  will  is  an  active  force, 
spiritual,  forming  in  some  way  a  union  with  the 
divine  will,  so  that  the  volitionating  of  the  divine  will 
is  so  imparted  to  the  human  will  that  we  may  be 
said  ourselves  to  volitionate.  That  the  will  is  not 
-purus  actus  in  the  abstract  sense,  but  that  it  is  spirit 
acting  with  some  end  in  view,  the  realization  of 
which  would  have  been  an  absolute  self-consciousness,. 

1  Psychology,  By  John  Dewey,  P.  417. 


II 

or  such  a  consciousness  of  the  ego  within  us,  that 
from  that  consciousness  we  should  be  able  to  estab- 
lish beyond  all  doubt  the  existence  of  spirit  substance. 

The  Understanding  and  the  Will : — The  understand- 
ing taken  as  a  faculty  says  Berkeley,  is  not  really 
distinct  from  the  will ;  however,  the  will  and  the 
understanding  may  very  well  be  thought  to  be  two 
distinct  activities.  There  is  but  little  doubt  that  the 
separation  of  will  and  understanding  was  a  matter  of 
which  Berkeley  was  not  sure,  neither  indeed  was  he 
able  to  form  a  unity  of  the  two  which  made  no  dis- 
tinction between  them.  Every  student  of  Berkeley  is 
thoroughly  acquainted  with  his  conception  of  the  word 
idea  ;  the  difference  between  idea  and  volition  is  appar- 
ent; the  difference  between  will  and  understanding  is 
relatively  the  difference  between  volition  and  idea,  i.  e., 
what  the  will  is  to  volition,  the  understanding  is  to  idea, 
or  on  the  other  hand,  as  volition  is  the  realization  of 
will  so  idea  is  the  realization  of  understanding ;  it 
follows,  therefore,  that  will  and  understanding  are  in- 
separable, both  abstract  ideas,  the  existence  of  one 
necessitating  the  existence  of  the  other,  and  that  will  is 
the  cause  of  idea,  and  idea  the  realization  of  under- 
standing. 

What  Wills  and  How? 

If  you  ask  what  thing  it  is  that  wills  I  must  inquire 
what  you  mean  by  "thing,"  if  you  mean  idea  or  any- 
thing like  an  idea,  then  I  answer  it  is  no  "thing"  at  all 
that  wills ;  however  extravagant  this  may  seem  never- 


12 

theless  it  is  true,  and  it  is  that  fundamental  truth  on 
which  the  foregoing  argument  is  based.  Willing  is  co- 
existent with  self-consciousness  and  we  can  no  more 
keep  from  willing  than  we  can  keep  from  existing ; 
while  we  exist  we  must  therefore  will ;  the  acquiescing 
in  the  present  state  is  a  process  of  willing.  That  which 
wills  is  an  active  power,  spirit,  and  there  is  no  other 
active  power  that  can  possibly  be  conceived  of  but  the 
will.  Here  the  conclusion  to  which  Berkeley  is  tend- 
ing is  already  manifesting  itself;  he  says  there  is  no 
active  power  but  the  will,  therefore  if  matter  exists  at 
all  it  does  not  affect  us  ;  whether  or  not  Berkeley  is  able, 
metaphysically,  to  prove  the  doctrine  of  his  Principles, 
he  proposes  to  show  that  it  forms  no  basis  whatever 
for  the  prevalent  scepticism  with  respect  to  those  reali- 
ties which  are  of  prime  importance  in  attaining  the 
highest  end  of  man's  existence. 

(i)  The  connection  of  the  human  with  the  divine  will. 

To  show  this  connection  is  to  answer  the  question 
how  the  will  wills,  and  it  is  this  connection  which  de- 
termines the  difference  between  cause  and  occasion. 
Occasion  arises  from  a  power  that  is  without  us,  and 
is  acting  independent  of  us ;  and  of  those  things  which 
happen  from  without,  we  are  not  the  cause,  but  there  is 
another  cause  for  them  i.  e.,  there  is  a  being  which 
wills  these  perceptions  in  us.  Therefore,  there  is  a 
duality  existing,  a  human  and  a  divine  will,  and  the 
human  is  not  reducible  to  a  mere  machine  to  serve  the 
purpose  of  the  divine. 


'3 

The  properties  of  all  things  are  in  God,  i.  e.,  there  is 
in  the  Deity  understanding  as  well  as  will.  He  is  no 
blind  agent;  in  truth  a  blind  agent  is  a  contradiction. 
In  this  lies  the  substance  of  Berkeley's  philosophy, 
whatever  may  be  ascribed  to  the  faculties  of  man  be- 
long to  the  faculties  of  God  or  to  the  attributes  of  God ; 
on  the  other  hand,  and  set  over  against  this  is  man  as  a 
volitionating  being ;  separate  man  from  the  Deity  and 
he  becomes  a  blind  agent ;  make  him  a  machine 
through  which  the  Deity  operates  and  he  ceases  to  be 
an  agent  at  all.  The  conclusion  is  then  that  the  human 
will  is  an  activity  within  itself  capable  of  volitionating 
and  yet  dependent  upon  and  inseparable  from  the 
Divine  will.  They  are  two  things  uniting  and  adher- 
ing, as  it  were,  in  one  substratum,  viz.,  spirit  substance, 
(pure  reality)  which  is  thinkable  but  not  reducible  to 
an  idea. 


II. 

WILL,  A  SYNTHETIC  ELEMENT  OR  ACTIVITY. 

Our  investigation  thus  far  has  been  to  detect,  if 
possible,  Berkeley's  conception  of  the  Will,  but  he  goes 
further  than  the  mere  attempt  to  gain  a  notion  of  what 
the  will  is,  he  plans  to  bring  the  will  into  his  philosophy 
in  the  ultimate  answer  to  his  questions  what  are  ex- 
istence, reality,  externality,  causality  and  reason.  As 
Kant's  philosophy  is  an  attempt  to  answer  the  ques- 
tions, how  are  mathematics,  physics  and  metaphysics 
possible?  and  in  his  answers  to  establish  a  system  of 
metaphysics,  so  Berkeley's  proposed  philosophy  was  an 
attempt  not  only  to  define  the  meaning  of  the  words 
existence,  reality,  externality,  causality  and  reason  but 
to  show  that  these  things  were  possible  and  what  was 
the  essence  of  them.  Could  Berkeley  succeed  in  this 
then  he  could  or  would  have  solved  the  whole  philoso- 
phic problem ;  there  would  no  longer  be  any  excuse  for 
scepticism  or  dogmatism.  To  this  end  he  produced  his 
philosophical  works  which  form  the  nucleus  out  of 
which  has  grown  the  most  of  our  modern  philosophic 
thought.  The  unity,  however,  which  is  necessary  to  a 
complete  knowledge  of  the  physical  and  spiritual  worlds 
he  never  realized  ;  the  science  of  metaphysics  he  never 
formulated.  Of  this  fact  Berkeley  was  fully  conscious, 


'5 

but  was  no  more  satisfied  to  leave  the  problem  there 
than  modern  philosophers  have  been  to  accept  his  doc- 
trines as  conclusive.  It  was  for  the  completion  of  a 
science  of  metaphysics,  to  reach  a  unity  in  knowledge, 
that  Berkeley  proposed  to  produce  a  treatise  on  the 
will,  and  the  second  part  of  this  paper  is  to  show  that 
Berkeley  meant  to  make  the  will  fundamental  in  know- 
ledge and  metaphysics. 

A  complete  answer  to  the  above  questions  was  to 
Berkeley  a  complete  unity  in  knowledge  of  all  things 
both  physical  and  metaphysical. 

To  reach  Berkeley's  contemplated  conclusion  it  will 
be  necessary  to  examine  the  part  played  by  experience 
in  this  perfect  knowledge,  or  to  find  out  if  possible  what 
experience  really  is. 

All  our  knowledge,  says  Berkeley,  is  about  ideas ;  he 
here  uses  the  word  ideas1  as  closely  allied  to,  if  not  a 
synonym  for  experience.  He  says  "our  simple  ideas 
are  so  many  simple  thoughts  or  perceptions."2  All 
ideas  are  either  from  without  or  from  within.  If  from 
without,  they  are  sense  ideas  or  sensations ;  if  from 
within,  they  are  operations  of  the  mind,  products  of 
thought.  Kant  would  call  them  categories.  Know- 
ledge is  about  ideas  but  knowledge  is  not  ideas  ;  know- 
ledge is  experience  and  has  in  it  two  factors,  perception 
and  thought.  So  called  ideas  are  not  ideas  unless  they 
can  be  reduced  to  things  perceivable,  and  not  mere 

1  Berkeley's  Works  Vol.  i,  P.  121. 

3  The  Commonplace  Book  (found  in  the  Life  and  Letters  of  George  Berkeley 
with  Writings  Hitherto  Unpublished)  P.  489. 


i6 


activities ;  neither  can  there  be  ideas  without  perception 
actual  or  presupposed;1  neither  can  a  perception  be 
perceived  without  a  thing  (an  activity)  to  perceive 
it.2  It  follows  that  knowledge  about  ideas  when  taken 
from  these  two  sources  within  and  without,  reduces 
practically  to  experience ;  at  least  knowledge  cannot  be 
without  the  two  factors  perception  and  thought. 

There  is  no  knowledge  except  from  these  sources,  i. 
e.,  except  it  be  made  up  of  the  two  elements  perception 
and  thought.  This  is  clear  for  Berkeley  says,  if  it  were 
not  for  the  senses,  that  the  mind  could  have  no  know- 
ledge;  no  thought  at  all.3  And  the  whole  tenor  of  his 
philosophy  is  to  show  that  sensations  alone  are  not 
knowledge,  but  only  things  about  which  we  have 
knowledge.  The  two  factors  which  enter  into  our 
knowledge  make  it  possible  for  us  to  have  an  experience 
without  which  we  could  not  have  knowledge  at  all. 

Neither  sensations  nor  thought  alone  can  give  us  ex- 
perience,4 for  if  we  attempt  to  set  off  the  operations  of 
the  mind  to  themselves  and  set  them  over  against  the 
conditions  of  perception  and,  excluding  the  latter, 
attempt  to  draw  experience  out  of  the  former,  we  can 
succeed  only  by  reducing  the  fundamental  activities  or 
modes  of  the  understanding  to  ideas,  but  the  moment 
they  become  ideas,  they  cease  to  be  activities  ;  they  are 
mere  "things"  and  we  are  found  in  a  hopeless  contra- 

1  The  Commonplace  Book.  PP.  423  and  433. 

2  "  «  «•          "    498    "    438. 

•     "  "  "        P.  434- 

4  Introduction  to  Selections,  P.  XXVII. 


diction  of  terms.  If  we  keep  within  the  operations  of 
the  mind's  activity,  in  our  search  for  the  possibility  of 
experience,  we  can  have  no  ideas  of  this  activity  and 
hence  experience  is  impossible.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
we  attempt  to  draw  experience  out  of  sensations  alone 
we  rob  ourselves  of  the  power  of  self-identity.1  The 
essence  of  mind,  the  ego  which  is  substantial  would  at 
once  be  excluded.  Sense-ideas  or  phenomena  are  at 
once  dependent  upon  the  mind  and  symbolical  of  the 
intuitions  of  the  mind.2  To  draw  experience  from  sen- 
sations alone  excludes  this  mind  essence  and  leaves 
experience  to  the  work  of  a  blind  agent  which  is  no 
less  contradictory  than  our  former  proposition  of  draw- 
ing experience  out  of  our  mental  operations.  There 
are  then  in  all  knowledge  two  elements  and  these  are 
the  same  as  Kant  calls  a  priori  and  a  posteriori. 

Men  are  confused  in  their  attempts  to  solve  the 
problem  of  knowledge,  because  they  look  to  other 
sources  than  the  understanding  for  knowledge,  and 
there  is  no  knowledge  without  the  understanding.3  Still 
another  source  of  confusion  arises  out  of  the  fact  that 
words  which  signify  the  operations  of  the  mind  are 
taken  from  sensible  ideas.  The  remedy  for  this  is  in 
studying  the  understanding4  and  in  finding  out  its  rela- 
tions to  the  problem  of  knowledge. 

We  must  pause  for  a  moment  to  inquire,  what  are  ob- 

1  Berkeley's  Works,  Vol.  i,  PP.  328-329. 

2  "  "  "     i,  P.  230  and  The  Principles,  Sec.  142. 

3  Commonplace  Book,  P.  432. 

"      P.  435- 


i8 

jects  of  knowledge  and  how  do  they  exist?  The  objects 
of  conscious  experience  are  alleged,  in  section  one 
of  the  "Principles  of  Human  Knowledge,"  to  be  "(a') 
sense-given  or  external  phenomena,  (b')  internal  phe- 
nomena, (c)  phenomena  which  may  be  representative 
or  misrepresentative  of  both  these."1  These  sense-given 
or  external  phenomena  which  are  necessary  to  a  con- 
scious experience  are  objects  existing  just  as  really  as 
any  object  exists  to  the  most  radical  advocate  of  the 
school  of  realism ;  for  without  their  actual  existence 
neither  experience  nor  knowledge  could  be  possible. 
"Sensible  things, — trees,  houses,  mountains,  the  whole 
choir  of  heaven  and  the  furniture  of  earth — to  the  indi- 
vidual percipient — consist  at  once  of  actually  presented 
and  of  merely  represented  sensations."2  The  first  ele- 
ment leaves  the  individual  without  choice  and  the  object 
presented  without  universality.  The  individual  opens 
his  eyes  and  beholds  an  object  which  he  calls  a  tree  ; 
the  object  is  presented  to  him  with  sufficient  coherence 
to  produce  a  sensation  out  of  which  he  forms  a  percep- 
tion, and  a  judgment,  an  idea,  but  the  tree  is  particular- 
ized so  far  as  the  individual  is  concerned.  However  it 
exists  and  has  its  coherence  in  the  divine  mind  and  the 
mere  experience  arising  from  its  observance  or  its 
presentation  is  not  a  matter  of  choice  with  the  observer. 
The  second  element  involves  contingency  or  arbitra- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  divine  mind,  and  so  far  univer- 

1  Cf.  Principles  Sec.  i,  and  Berkeley's  Works  Vol.  i.  PP.  131-22. 
a  Life  and  Letters,  P.  378. 


sality  or  objectivity.  If  there  is  a  particular  tree  there 
must  be  also  the  possibility  of  the  representative  univer- 
sal tree.  It  is  this  universal  that  changes  the  object 
from  a  mere  ideal  idealism  to  a  real  idealism,  or  from  a 
mere  subjective  phantasy  to  an  objective  reality.  Sen- 
sations are  independent  of  the  recipient  and  the  cause 
of  sensations  external  to  the  recipient ;  if  this  were  not 
so,  sensations  could  not  be  fleeting  and  the  Ego  per- 
manent, but  sensations  are  fleeting  as  the  experience  of 
humanity  universally  testifies  ;  but  the  Ego  is  perman- 
ent,1 otherwise  there  could  be  no  experience  to  offer 
such  testimony,  and  whether  there  had  ever  been  an 
experience  or  ever  would  be  an  experience  other  than 
the  "now"  would  be  impossible  for  us  to  know.  On  the 
other  hand,  sensations  are  dependent  upon  the  recipi- 
ent, for  to  conceive  of  them  existing  as  I  now  have 
them  is  impossible  unless  there  is  an  I  to  be  sentient  of 
them.2  Sensations  are  therefore  at  the  same  time  de- 
pendent and  independent  of  the  sentient  being.  All 
changes  of  sensation  are  independent  of  the  will  of  the 
recipient,  but  the  realization  of  the  objective  cause  of 
the  sensation  is  dependent  upon  the  will  of  the  percipi- 
ent. We  see  that  there  is  here  set  forth  an  apparent 
contradiction  in  Berkeley's  philosophy  of  the  process  of 
knowledge,  and  unless  the  problem  is  looked  at  strictly 
from  the  metaphysical  standpoint  there  is  a  real  con- 
tradiction. Prof.  Bowne  says,  that  "metaphysically 

1  Berkeley's  Works.  Vol.  i,  n.  P.  230.  Pr.  Sec.  142. 

2  Commonplace  Book,  P.  481. 


20 


Berkeley's  theory  of  the  externality  of  matter  cannot  be 
disproved,  for  without  the  will  of  God  nothing  can 
exist."1  It  is  only  necessary  then  to  understand  that  the 
objective  cause  of  a  sensation  is  not  absolute,  but  is 
dependent  upon  the  activity,  yea  even  upon  the  con- 
stant activity  of  the  will  of  God  ;  in  this  existence  there 
is  a  sufficient  coherency  permanently  to  contain  all  the 
elements  necessary  to  the  production  of  a  sensation. 
The  time  of  a  sensation  depends  upon  attendant  circum- 
stances not  necessary  to  be  explained  here.  This  co- 
herency of  matter  which  makes  it  capable  of  perman- 
ently producing  sensations,  and  by  which  sensations 
are  thrust  upon  us  whether  we  will  or  not,  explains  to 
us  the  sense  in  which  a  sensation  is  independent  of  the 
Me,  of  the  sentient  creature.  This  material  object 
which  causes  the  sensation  is  not  a  something  created 
by  a  fiat  of  the  Divine  Will  or  power  and  cast  out  into 
space  as  an  absolute  and  independent  existence,  as  a 
thing-in-itself,  but  it  is  the  manifestation  of  the  Divine 
Will  in  a  state  of  constant  activity.  This  manifestation 
produces  sensations  in  the  percipient ;  these  sensations 
are  caught  up  by  the  activity  of  the  mind  and  made 
over  into  conceptions,  the  whole  process  resulting  in 
knowledge.  These  two  elements  are  the  same  two 
elements  which  Kant  calls  perception  and  conception. 
The  chief  difference  is  in  the  form  of  the  dualism 
arising  from  these  two  elements  and  the  manner  or 
process  of  their  synthesis.  Let  us  pause  here  for  a 

1  Bowne's  Metaphysics,  P.  461. 


21 


moment  and  examine  Berkeley's  conception  of  those 
two  elements  in  their  separate  relations  to  our  know- 
ledge or  experience.  This  apparent  digression  is 
necessary  that  we  may  understand  the  importance  of 
Berkeley's  attempt  to  do  away  with  the  schools  of 
rationalism  and  empiricism  and  yet  preserve  their 
principles  as  fundamental  elements  in  knowledge. 

First,  let  us  inquire  into  Berkeley's  notion  of  percep- 
tion. Perception  is  used  now  generally,  in  a  somewhat 
different  way  than  it  was  in  the  philosophy  of  Locke 
and  Berkeley.  The  latter  however  develops  perception 
through  his  term  "suggestion"1  into  an  acquired  per- 
ception of  things,  objects  in  space.  Berkeley  in  his 
later  philosophy  made  perception  as  necessary  to  ex- 
perience as  experience  was  necessary  to  knowledge, 
and  varied  his  psychological  view  until  he  may  be  in- 
terpreted as  using  the  term  perception  much  more  in 
the  Kantian  sense  than  any  of  his  predecessors  had 
done. 

He  foreshadows  sometimes  Kant's  schematism  in  the 
succession  of  events  and  in  the  filling  of  a  moment  of 
time  ;2  he  says  "extension,  motion,  time,  each  include  the 
idea  of  succession."  Number  which  consists  of  distinct 
perception,  consists  also  of  succession,  for  things  which 
are  at  once  perceived  are  jumbled  together  and  mixed 
in  the  mind.  Time  and  motion  cannot  be  conceived 
without  succession.3  It  is  clearly  implied  that  here  in 

1  Selections  from  Berkeley,  P.  158. 

2  Commonplace  Book,  n.  P.  471. 

"        P.  425. 


22 

the  notion  of  perception,  there  can  be  no  empty  time 
and  from  what  follows,  that  there  can  be  no  moment  of 
time,  at  least  of  which  we  can  have  any  knowledge, 
that  is  empty  of  sense  perception,  or  external  percep- 
tion. He  continues  by  saying  if  it  were  not  for  sense 
(perception)  the  mind  could  have  no  knowledge,  no 
thought  at  all.1  This  statement  of  Berkeley  is  emphatic, 
and  when  interpreted  simply  means  that  thought  cannot 
be  merely  analytic.  Had  Berkeley  developed  this  prin- 
ciple he  would  have  shown  that  the  manifold,  or  things 
jumbled  in  the  mind  as  he  says,  were  not  given  to  the 
mind  as  things  ready  made  for  the  mind  to  act  upon, 
but  that  they  are  the  external  manifestation  of  the  Divine 
Will  and  are  given  to  the  mind  as  a  whole,  a  mere  im- 
pression, and  that  the  activity  of  the  mind  made  them 
as  we  know  them  i.  e.,  there  can  be  no  absolute  thing- 
in-itself  given  to  the  mind  for  it  to  work  upon,  but  none 
the  less  a  real  and  permanent  manifestation  of  divine 
intelligence  and  activity  which  must  be  acted  upon  by 
our  intelligence  or  understanding  in  order  to  become 
objectified.  Without  such  a  given  manifold,  thought 
either  analytic  or  synthetic  would  be  impossible ;  all 
knowledge  must  then  have  two  elements  in  it  and  must 
be  synthetic,  the  process  of  this  synthesis  was  to  be  de- 
veloped in  the  activity  of  the  will  and  to  be  set  forth  in 
the  contemplated  treatise  on  the  will. 

Berkeley  makes  no  use  of  the  imagination  as  a   syn- 
thetic element  of    any   kind,  but   very   clearly   distin- 

1  Commonplace  Book,  P.  434. 


23 

guishes  between  sense  perception  and  the  imagination. 
The  perceptions  have  a  steadiness,  order,  and  coherence 
which  are  not  found  in  the  imagination,  and  to  reduce 
Berkeley  to  a  philosophy  which  gives  no  more  perma- 
nence to  the  objective  world  of  his  idealism,  than  to  the 
imaginary  world  is  simply  to  advertise  an  ignorance  of 
his  whole  system.  I  can  do  no  better  here  to  establish 
the  permanence  of  Berkeley's  phenomenal  world  than 
to  quote  two  or  three  paragraphs  from  Prof.  Fraser, 
taken  from  the  "Life  and  Letters  of  Berkeley." 

"One  actual  sensation  or  group  of  sensations  is  the 
universal  work  of  other  sensations  or  groups  of  sensa- 
tions that  are  not  at  the  time  actual.  This  relation  of 
sensible  sign  and  its  correlative,  Berkeley  would  say, 
is  only  imaginable,  meaning  of  substantiality  or  caus- 
ality, when  they  are  attributed  to  essentially  dependent 
and  passive  phenomena  like  those  of  sense. 

"Further  still  these  practically  all  important  relations 
of  coexistence  and  succession  among  perceived  sensa- 
tions are,  a  priori,  at  this  point  of  view,  arbitrary. 
That  is  to  say,  there  is  no  uncreated  or  Divine  necessity 
for  their  being  what  we  find  it  to  be,  any  sensation  or 
group  of  sensations  may  be  the  constant  or  universal 
sign  of  any  other.  A  priori,  anything  might  be  the 
physical  co-constituent,  and  physical  cause  of  any- 
thing ;  for  physical  substance  and  causality  are  only 
the  arbitrarily  constituted  signification  of  actual  sen- 
sations. 

"Thus  the   only  conceivable  and  practical,  and  for 


24 

us  the  only  possible,  substantiality  in  the  material 
world  is  —  permanence  of  coexistence  or  aggregation 
among  sensations ;  and  the  only  conceivable  and  prac- 
tical, and  for  us  the  only  possible,  causality  among 
phenomena  is — permanence  or  invariableness  among 
their  successions. 

"These  two  are  almost  (but  not  quite)  one.  The 
actual  or  conscious  coexistence  of  all  the  sensations 
which  constitute  a  particular  tree,  or  a  particular  moun- 
tain, cannot  be  simultaneously  realized,  a  few  coexistent 
visible  signs,  for  instance,  lead  us  to  expect  that  the 
many  other  sensations  of  which  the  tree  is  the  virtual 
co-constituent  would  gradually  be  perceived  by  us,  if 
the  conditions  for  our  having  actual  sensations  of  all 
the  other  qualities  were  fulfilled.  The  substantiality 
and  causality  of  matter  thus  resolve  into  a  Universal 
Sense-Symbolism,  the  interpretation  of  which  is  the 
office  of  physical  science.  The  physical  world  is  a 
system  of  interpretable  signs,  dependent  for  its  actual 
existence  in  sense  upon  the  sentient  mind  of  the  inter- 
preter ;  but  significant  of  guaranteed  pains  and  pleas- 
ures, and  the  guaranteed  means  of  avoiding  and  at- 
taining pains  and  pleasures ;  significant  too  of  other 
minds,  and  their  thoughts,  feelings  and  volitions ;  and 
significant  above  all  of  Supreme  mind  through  whose 
Activity,  the  signs  are  sustained,  and  whose  Archetypal 
Ideas  are  the  source  of  those  universal  or  invariable 
relations  of  theirs  which  make  them  both  practically 
and  scientifically  significant  or  objective.  The  per- 


manence  and  efficiency  attributed  to  matter  is  in  God — 
in  the  constitutive  Universals  of  Supreme  Mind ;  sen- 
sations or  sense-given  phenomena  themselves  and  sen- 
sible things,  so  far  as  they  consist  of  sensations,  can  be 
neither  permanent  nor  efficient ;  they  are  in  constant 
flux."  This  constant  flux  is  not  the  miraculous  creat- 
ing and  destroying  of  things,  but  the  constant  phe- 
nomenal change  of  the  permanent  in  nature  and  fore-r 
shadows  the  Kantian  doctrine  of  the  change  in  the 
permanent.  "The  material  world — its  substance  or 
permanence,  its  powers,  and  its  space — resolve  them- 
selves into  a  flux  of  beautifully  significant  sensations, 
sense-ideas  or  sense-phenomena,  which  are  perpetually 
sustained  in  existence  by  a  Divine  Reason  and  Will. 
It  is  so  that  the  Berkelean  Conception  reconciles  Plato 
with  Protagoras."1 

Permanence  is  therefore  a  necessary  factor  in  -the 
conditions  of  perception,  but  actual  perception  is  not 
itself  necessary  to  the  external  existence  of  bodies. 
The  existence  of  bodies  unperceived  may  be  said  to  be 
only  a  potential  existence,  but  it  is  an  existence  depend- 
ing upon  the  active  powers  of  an  intelligent  being. 
This  necessary  activity  is  no  less  important  in  the  phi- 
losophy of  later  thought  than  with  Berkeley,  the  chief 
difference  being  the  way  the  different  schools  of  philoso- 
phy account  for  the  principle  of  activity. 

Conception  is  a  no  less  important  factor  in  knowledge 
than  perception,  according  to  Berkeley.  Concepts  as 

1  Life  and  Letters  of  Berkeley,  PP.  374-376. 


26 


such  are  not  given  to  us  intuitively ;  a  concept  is  not 
something  given  from  the  external  world,  it  is  thought. 
All  things  conceived  by  us,  according  to  Berkeley, 
"are  (a')  thoughts,  (b')  powers  to  receive  thoughts, 
and  (c)  powers  to  cause  thoughts."1  External  things 
are  perceived  but  by  perception  alone  cannot  be  known  ; 
the  active  power  of  thought  must  form  an  element  in 
the  knowledge  of  any  thing.  This  activity  is  necessary 
to  the  formation  of  a  judgment,  and  the  judgment  must 
involve  both  a  percept  and  a  concept;2  the  former  is 
given  through  the  senses,  the  latter  is  made  out  of  the 
mind's  activity ;  it  is  a  process  of  thought  activity. 
The  problem  which  has  been  so  vexing  to  philosophers 
of  all  ages,  viz.,  the  distinction  between  perception  and 
conception,  did  not  greatly  disturb  Berkeley  in  his 
problem  of  knowledge ;  Berkeley  had  but  one  thing- 
in-itself,  if  you  look  at  this  one  thing-in-itself  from  the 
standpoint  of  its  outward  manifestation  you  have  per- 
ception, if  you  look  at  it  from  the  side  of  its  inward 
activity  you  have  conception.  Hence  Berkeley  did  not 
have  to  contend  with  that  kind  of  dualism  which  has 
been  so  annoying  to  many  philosophers  both  before 
and  since  his  time.  He  had  a  dualism3  of  a  different 
nature,  but  the  very  principle  of  his  synthesis  removed 
from  him  the  annoying  problems  of  separating  percep- 
tion and  conception,  and  the  unifying  of  two  things-in- 
themselves. 

1  Commonplace  Book,  P.  484. 

"       P.  454.     And  Selections,  n.  P.  71. 
3  Life  and  Letters,  P.  29.    And  Commonplace  Book,  422. 


27 

The  dualism  of  Berkeley  was  the  dualism  arising 
from  setting  the  self  over  against  the  outer  world,  but 
in  a  very  different  way  from  that  of  Descartes,  for  the 
Cartesian  idea  or  conception  of  the  world  was  to  Berke- 
ley a  mere  abstraction.  Berkeley's  dualism  was  not 
so  much  a  dualism  between  percept  and  concept,  as  it 
was  a  dualism  between  concepts,  between  his  own  con- 
ception of  the  impossibility  of  anything  existing  in  the 
universe  unperceived  or  unwilled,  and  the  common 
idea  of  the  independent  existence  of  matter.1  The 
synthesis  of  these  concepts  however  would  destroy  the 
Cartesian  dualism  between  mind  and  matter.  Matter 
would  no  longer  stand  over  against  self,  but  it  would 
be  a  manifestion  of  a  self-conscious  intelligence  and 
would  therefore  be  in  self-consciousness.  A  synthetic 
activity  by  which  such  a  dualism  could  be  made  into 
a  unity  was  just  as  necessary  in  Berkeley's  system  as 
it  was  in  Descartes'  or  in  Kant's.  Upon  the  synthetic 
activity  which  made  this  dualism  into  a  unity  depended 
the  coherence  and  permanence  of  the  external  world 
which  made  experience  a  possibility.  That  unifying 
element  is  the  Will.  There  is  not  one  big  Will,  viz., 
the  Divine  Will  which  creates  all  these  things  of  the 
objective  world,  and  then  a  lot  of  little  wills,  one  for 
each  person,  by  which  there  is  a  realization  of  this 
creation  ;  there  is  but  one  Will  and  the  manifestation  of 
that  Will  objectively  is  the  objective  world,  and  the 
human  will  is  the  subjective  manifestation  of  the  Divine 

1  Life  and  Letters.  P.  29.  And  Commonplace  Book,  P.  433. 


28 


Will,  or  is  a  differentiation  of  the  one  universal  Will 
working  through  us,  the  development  and  realization 
of  which  tends  toward  a  perfect  intelligence  which  if 
ever  attained  to  would  mean  a  full  realization  of  the 
Divine  Will.  This  would  be  a  complete  knowledge  of 
the  objective  world  which  would  be  the  ultimate  phil- 
osophical unity.  Kant  sought  this  unity  by  setting 
forth  two  things-in-themselves,  one  objective  and  one 
subjective,  and  then  sought  a  process  of  knowledge  by 
which  he  might  synthesize  the  dualism  thus  made. 
Berkeley  sought,  by  maintaining  that  there  was  but 
one  thing-in-itself,  viz.,  the  subjective,  to  establish  a 
philosophy  which  would  explain  the  external  world 
and  self-consciousness  by  showing  that  there  was  no 
external  world  outside  of  self-consciousness. 

The  question  now  presents  itself  to  us  :  What  was 
the  synthetic  activity  by  means  of  which  Berkeley 
meant  to  reach  his  ultimate  unity?  The  question  can 
be  answered  in  a  single  word,  it  was  the  Will.  What 
has  already  been  said  is  to  show  that  the  process  of 
knowledge  does  include  the  elements  attributed  to 
knowledge  both  by  the  empiricists  and  by  the  rational- 
ists, and  by  the  idealists  and  the  realists.  The  process 
by  which  the  elements  were  to  be  synthesized  and 
knowledge  brought  to  an  ideal  unity  was  to  be  a  pro- 
cess of  the  Will  contemplated  but  not  developed. 

Berkeley  was  not  able  to  free  himself  from  the  notion 
of  the  Will  as  given  to  him  from  his  study  of  Descartes. 
In  the  psychology  of  Descartes  there  are  two  funda- 


29 

mental  modes  of  thought,  viz.,  perception  and  volition  ; 
in  receiving  ideas  the  mind  is  passive,  its  ideas  are  put 
into  it  partly  by  the  objects  which  effect  the  senses, 
partly  by  the  impressions  in  the  brain  and  partly  by  the 
disposition  or  habits  of  the  mind  itself  previously  form- 
ed, and  by  the  movements  of  the  Will.  The  mind  is 
active  only  in  volitions.  The  Will  therefore  being 
more  originative  has  more  to  do  with  true  or  false 
judgments  than  the  understanding.  In  the  perfection 
of  man  as  well  as  in  the  nature  of  God,  Will  and  in- 
tellect must  be  united.  For  thought,  will  is  as  neces- 
sary as  understanding.1 

A  judgment  is  the  work  of  the  understanding :  the 
affirming  or  denying  of  it  is  the  work  of  the  will.  The 
will  goes  further  than  the  understanding  and  may  turn 
the  understanding  from  the  path  of  knowledge.  There 
is  rothing  which  the  will  cannot  affirm  or  deny,  accept 
or  reject,  or  toward  which  it  cannot  occupy  an  attitude 
of  indifference ;  the  will  extends  to  the  unknown  as 
well  as  to  the  known,  and  can  affirm  or  deny  the  one 
as  well  as  the  other ;  the  will  is  therefore  greater  than 
the  understanding.  The  understanding  is  limited  to  a 
definite  sphere,  the  will  is  unlimited.  Descartes  says, 
"The  will  or  the  freedom  of  the  will  is  of  all  my  facul- 
ties the  only  one  which,  according  to  my  experience, 
is  ^o  great  that  I  cannot  conceive  a  greater.  It  is  this 
faculty  pre-eminently  by  reason  of  which  I  believe  I 
am  created  in  the  image  of  God."3 

1  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  Art.  Descartes. 

2  History  of  Modern  Philosophy.     By  Kuno  Fischer,     PP.  361-62. 


30 

Berkeley  was  a  close  student  of  Descartes  and  was 
influenced  by  his  doctrine  to  regard  the  will  as  the 
unifying  element  in  knowledge. 

Kant  made  self-consciousness  the  source  of  all  the 
categories  but  could  not  know  self-consciousness  be- 
cause the  categories  could  not  be  applied  to  it,  yet  he 
was  absolutely  certain  that  such  an  activity  as  self- 
consciousness  existed.  Berkeley  made  use  of  the  will 
in  the  same  relation,  it  was  the  activity  of  will  that 
made  self-consciousness  possible,  it  contained  all  the 
categories,  or  rather  it  was  the  source  of  all  the  pro- 
cesses of  knowledge,  yet  it  could  not  be  known  because 
no  idea  could  be  formed  of  it,  Kant  would  say  no  cate- 
gory could  be  applied  to  it.  Berkeley  had  but  one 
thing-in-itself  viz.,  spirit,  a  living  and  conscious  indi- 
vidual spirit,  and  his  self  identity  arose  by  God  working 
through  this  individuality  of  spirit,  and  experience  was 
made  by  placing  this  spirit  as  a  unifier  of  experiences. 
This  spirit  was  the  active  principle  of  mind,  an  activity 
which  transcended  Hume's  idea  of  knowledge,  which 
gave  us  as  many  states  of  consciousness  as  we  had  ex- 
periences. Berkeley's  self-identity  could  not  arise  out 
of  mere  self-consciousness  taken  on  the  side  of  thought, 
for  we  cannot  be  conscious  of  self  except  as  we  set  the 
self  over  against  the  outer  external  world  ;  self  identity 
cannot  be  the  result  of  mere  consciousness,  for  if  so 
then  I  could  not  possibly  be  the  same  person  to-day  I 
was  twelve  months  ago.1  The  transcendental  unity  of 

1  Commonplace  Book.  P.  481. 


31 

apperception  was  not  seen  by  Berkeley,  but  some 
identifying  principle  is  necessary  to  self-consciousness, 
Berkeley  therefore  makes  the  active  principle  of  will 
run  through  these  states  of  consciousness  and  bind 
them  into  one  unified  identity.1  The  objective  essence 
of  matter  or  the  sense  given  non-ego  was  with  Berkeley 
purely  phenomenal  or  ideal,  the  essence  of  mind,  the 
ego  is  substantial  and  causal.2  According  to  Berkeley's 
doctrine  the  identity  of  finite  substance  must  consist  in 
something  more  than  mere  continued  existence,  or 
relation  to  determined  time  and  place  of  beginning  to 
exist;  the  existence,  of  our  thoughts  (which  being  com- 
bined make  all  substances)  being  frequently  interrupt- 
ed they  have  divers  beginnings  and  endings.3  The 
active  principle  of  will  is  not  only  necessary  to  person- 
al identity,  but  is  necessary  to  insure  identity  of  any 
object. 

The  will  as  a  synthetic  activity  grows  out  of  the  fact 
that  there  is  but  one  Intelligence,  in  which  the  will 
constitutes  the  fundamental  active  principle ;  in  other 
words,  will  is  a  homogeneous  activity,  if  we  can  think 
of  activity  being  homogeneous  as  we  think  of  space 
being  made  up  of  homogeneous  parts ;  this  being  true 
our  wills  are  to  God's  Will  as  a  small  portion  of  space 
is  to  the  whole  of  space  ;  the  difference  being,  that  will 
as  an  activity  may  comprehend,  or  approach  compre- 
hension of  the  parent  will,  while  space  in  itself  being 

1  Commonplace  Book,  P.  481. 

3  Berkeley's  Works,  Vol.  i,  P.  230.     Principles  Sec.  142. 

•Commonplace  Book,  P.  481. 


32 

nothing  but  a  mere  abstraction  remains  to  all  space  just 
as  we  place  it.  This  being  true  whatever  exists  in 
God's  Will  must  exist  in  our  wills  so  far  as  our  wills  are 
made  to  comprehend  God's  Will,  or  in  other  words  the 
complete  comprehension  or  realization  of  God's  Will 
would  be  the  ultimate  unity  of  the  universe  in  our  self- 
consciousness,  which  is  the  end  of  all  philosophy  and 
the  banishment  of  all  scepticism. 

To  illustrate,  a  man  begins  with  the  colonization  of 
America  to  manufacture  woolen  goods,  the  whole  in- 
dustry of  woolen  goods  is  under  his  control ;  if  he  has 
a  disjunctive  judgment,  i.  e.,  if  he  has  an  unconditioned 
and  unlimited  knowledge  of  the  wants  and  demands  of 
the  people  so  far  as  the  market  for  woolen  goods  is 
concerned  and  that  knowledge  develops  with  the  trade 
and  remains  perfect  and  complete  all  the  time  he  will 
have  just  enough  factories,  just  enough  machinery,  just 
enough  working  men,  and  will  make  just  enough  goods 
to  the  yard  of  just  the  right  kind  to  supply  the  demand. 
If  the  manufacturer  could  live  through  the  whole  devel- 
opment or  evolution  of  trade  and  his  judgment  remain 
disjunctive  all  the  time  his  knowledge  would  be  a  per- 
fect knowledge,  a  perfect  unity  of  the  totality  or  logical 
individual  of  the  whole  ;  but  if  the  manufacturer  ceases 
to  exercise  his  will  in  the  running  of  his  machinery  no 
web  will  be  produced,  no  factory  will  exist.  The  will 
constitutes  the  fundamental  element  in  the  disjunctive 
judgment  of  the  manufacturer,  and  his  subjects  have  a 
perfect  knowledge  of  the  whole  trade  in  proportion  to 


33 

the  extent  in  which  they   comprehend  the  will  of  the 
manufacturer. 

Such  is  God's  relation  to  the  universe.  He  has  a 
disjunctive  judgment  of  the  universe,  the  activity  of  will 
underlying  it  all ;  there  can  therefore  be  no  dualism 
whatever,  there  can  be  no  two  things-in-themselves ; 
there  can  be  but  one  thing-in-itself,  self-conscious  spirit, 
and  that  spirit  is  active  and  its  activity  is  the  Will.  The 
external  world  is  not  outside  and  foreign  to  that  self- 
consciousness,  but  is  a  part  of  it  and  a  method  of  its 
manifestation.  There  is  not  a  separate  will  for  each 
person,  and  a  separate  intelligence  for  each  person, 
there  is  but  one  Will  and  that  will  working  through  us 
makes  our  wills,  and  produces  in  us  a  self  activity  by 
which  we  are  capable  of  development.  This  process 
of  development  is  bringing  the  external  world  into  our 
self-consciousness  and  thus  comprehending  more  or  less 
of  the  Divine  Will.  We  approach  the  unity  of  knowl- 
edge, the  disjunctive  judgment  of  the  universe,  in  pro- 
portion to  the  complete  comprehension  of  the  parent 
will.  O» 

Kant  makes  two  things  of  perception  and  conception,   j 
but  is  not  able  to  separate  one  from  the  other  and  define  j 
each  separately ;   so  Berkeley  gives  a  special  volition- 
ating  power  and  freedom  to  the  human  will,  but  does 
not  separate  it  from   the    Divine   Will.     There   is  no 
necessary  element  of  synthesis  between  the  human  and 
the  divine  wills,  because   from  the  very  nature  of  the 
activity  of  will  there  is,  to  start  with,  no  duality. 


34 

There  must  be  a  unity  which  underlies  man's  separa- 
tion from  nature  and  it  is  by  virtue  of  this  unity  that 
man  can  have  a  higher  ideal  of  nature  and  may  be  able 
to  realize  the  ideal  thus  formed.  This  brings  us  back 
to  the  origin  of  man  and  nature,  both  of  which  must  be 
expressions  of  an  intelligence ;  and  if  there  were  no 
connecting  link  man  would  be  entirely  isolated  from 
nature  and  could  form  no  conception  of  it  whatever, 
there  could  be  no  common  principle.  The  unifying 
link  is  Will,  in  which  is  found  two  elements,  first  the 
power  of  forming  conceptions  of  ends  not  already  exist- 
ing, and  second,  the  power  of  transforming  the  existing 
state  of  things  so  that  these  conceived  ends  become 
actual.  This  power  of  the  will  to  frame  ideals  is  due 
to  the  presence  in  it  of  a  perfect  intelligence ;  the  end 
man  always  has  before  him  is  the  realization  of  this 
perfect  intelligence,  and  the  various  particular  ends  are 
simply  so  many  aspects  of  the  realization  of  this  perfect 
intelligence.  Nature  is  only  a  partial  manifestation  and 
must  be  refashioned  and  worked  over  until  it  becomes  a 
more  adequate  expression  of  the  perfect  intelligence, 
and  that  is  the  realization  of  the  ideal  in  the  develop- 
ment of  will.  Nature  becomes  a  tool,  an  instrument  of 
the  will;  when  we  talk  of  subjugating  the  forces  of 
nature  we  simply  mean  the  bringing  of  them  under  the 
full  control  of  the  will ;  this  can  only  be  explained  by 
the  unity  of  a  higher  intelligence.1 

This  modern  conception  of  the  will  is  precisely  the 

1  Dewey's  Lectures,  Introduction  to  Philosophy. 


35 

outgrowth  of  the  principles  postulated  by  Berkeley  and 
shows  that  Berkeley  saw  behind  the  veil  what  philoso- 
phers now  see  more  clearly.  Two  hundred  years  of 
philosophic  thought  has  removed  partially  the  veil 
through  which  Berkeley  saw  but  which  he  was  not 
able  to  remove.  This  synthetic  activity  of  the  Will 
unites  the  dualism  of  concepts  already  referred  to, 
gives  coherence  to  the  objective  world,  and  changes 
our  former  conception  of  Berkeley's  objective  Idealism 
into  an  objective  Realism  differing  not  widely  from  the 
Empirical  Realism  of  Kant's  Critique  of  Pure  Reason.1 

Dr.  Bowne  of  our  own  time  does  not  widely  differ 
from  this  conception  of  Berkeley.  He  says,  "Matter 
and  material  things  have  no  ontological  existence,  but 
only  a  phenomenal  existence.  Their  necessary  de- 
pendence and  lack  of  all  subjectivity  makes  it  impossi- 
ble to  view  them  as  capable  of  other  than  phenomenal 
existence.  This  world- view  then  contains  the  following 
factors ;  (i)  The  Infinite  energizes  under  the  forms  of 
space  and  time;  (2)  the  system  of  energizing  according 
to  certain  laws  and  principles,  which  system  appears 
in  thought  as  the  external  universe;  and  (3)  finite 
spirits,  who  are  in  relation  to  this  system,  and  in  whose 
intuition  the  system  takes  on  the  forms  of  perception. 
This  view  is  not  well  described  as  idealism,  because  it 
makes  the  world  more  than  an  idea."2 

That  experience  may  be  possible  bodies  must  and  do 
exist  without  the  mind,  as  the  word  mind  is  commonly 

1  Kant's  Doctrine  of  the  Thing-in-itself,  P.  67. 
»  Bowne's  Metaphysics,  P.  466. 


36 

used,  and  Berkeley  sets  forth  very  clearly  how  it  is 
possible  to  have  a  body  exist  without  the  mind,  or  the 
difference  between  a  body  existing  within  the  mind  and 
one  existing  without  the  mind.  His  explanation  would 
be  about  on  this  wise;  every  idea  has  a  cause  i.  e.,  is 
produced  by  a  will.  Every  phenomenon  is  sustained 
by  a  free  intelligent  agent.  Without  the  activity  of  the 
mind,  without  the  exercise  of  the  Will  of  the  Deity 
nothing  could  exist,  and  no  longer  can  anything  exist 
than  the  Divine  Will  continues  to  act ;  the  moment  the 
activity  of  the  Divine  Will  ceases,  that  moment  the 
object  of  reality  must  become  a  nonentity.  The  Divine 
Will  is  an  activity  and  things  do  actually  exist,  and 
since  our  wills  are  part  of  the  Divine  Will  we  are  re- 
quired only  to  fulfill  the  necessary  conditions  and  we 
have  perception  ;  the  conditions  of  the  perception  of  a 
thing  remain  unchanged  whether  willed  directly  by  the 
Divine  Will,  as  a  mountain,  a  tree,  etc.,  or  worked  out 
indirectly  through  human  agency,  as  a  library.  So  far 
as  our  self-consciousness  is  concerned  they  exist  or 
non-exist  according  to  the  potential  or  actual  fulfillment 
or  non-fulfillment  of  the  conditions  of  perception.  The 
perception  once  having  been  formed  the  existence  is 
made  real  and  legitimate  by  means  of  the  imagination 
without  the  re-fulfillment  of  the  conditions  of  per- 
ception. What  is  the  difference  between  the  reality 
of  the  library  which  I  have  perceived  and  left 
and  now  recall  by  the  faculty  of  imagination, 
and  the  fanciful  library  which  I  may  call  up  and 


37 

arrange  in  the  adjoining  room,  which  in  reality  is 
nothing  but  fancy?  In  the  former  the  Divine  Will  and 
intelligence  has  worked  it  out  through  human  agency 
and  hence  it  has  sufficient  coherence  to  fulfill  all  the 
conditions  of  sense  perception.  In  the  second  case  the 
Divine  Will  has  not  acted  upon  the  fanciful  library,  and 
the  conditions  of  perception  have  not  been  provided. 
Hence  in  the  latter  the  library  is  merely  ideal,  while  in 
the  former  it  is  really  ideal,  or  if  you  please,  objectively 
ideal  as  well  as  subjectively  ideal.  This  existence 
when  not  perceived  however  is  but  a  potential  existence 
in  the  Divine  Will  and  Thought.  Bodies  do  exist 
when  not  perceived — they  being  powers  in  the  active 
being.1 

The  existence  of  bodies  with  Berkeley  is  not  a  mere 
fancy  of  the  mind,  neither  is  it  a  continual  miracle 
wrought  by  divine  power,  yet  both  these  positions  have 
been  charged  upon  him  in  spite  of  his  persistent  denial 
of  any  such  belief,  or  of  any  such  doctrine  with  respect 
to-  the  existence  of  reality  in  the  objective  world.  The 
existence  of  the  phenomenal  world  is  just  as  necessary 
to  experience  in  the  philosophy  of  Berkeley  as  it  is  in 
the  philosophy  of  Kant ;  further,  the  mere  existence  is 
not  sufficient  to  produce  an  experience,  there  must  be  a 
synthesis,  a  necessary  connection  in  this  phenomenal 
world,  otherwise  neither  world  nor  experience  would 
be  possible.2  It  is  true  that  Berkeley  did  not  system- 
atize his  theory  of  synthesis  and  necessary  connection 

1  Commonplace  Book,  P.  471. 

3  Berkeley-Blackwood's  Classics,  P.  194 


as  did  later  philosophers.  He  took  more  for  granted, 
but  his  place  in  the  philosophic  world  should  not  be 
underestimated  on  that  account ;  since  philosophers 
have  been  trying  for  two  hundred  years  to  complete  a 
system  of  synthesis  and  have  not  succeeded  to  the 
satisfaction  of  all,  it  would  hardly  be  expected  that  the 
man  who  originated  the  idea  would  culminate  the  doc- 
trine. It  was  as  creditable  for  him  to  postulate  such  a 
philosophy  even  in  isolated  thoughts  as  it  was  for  his 
followers  to  take  those  thoughts  and  make  a  system 
of  them. 

There  have  been  three  leading  theories  for  the  ex- 
istence of  the  material  universe  maintained  and  develop- 
ed, viz.,  the  Abstractly  Objective  theory  in  which  there 
is  a  static  something  that  contains  the  idea  of  unity 
when  it  is  separated  from  the  qualities  or  from  the 
multiplicity  of  the  external  world ;  it  is  simply  the  idea 
of  the  identity  separated  and  abstracted  from  the  differ- 
ences. Instead  of  getting  a  unity  of  the  differences 
and  qualities,  we  get  a  unity  separated  from  the  quali- 
ties and  underlying  not  one  thing  alone  but  all  things. 

The  second  of  these  theories  is  the  Abstractly  Sub- 
jective theory,  in  which  the  idea  of  a  real  unity  is  a 
fiction  of  the  mind.  It  denies  the  existence  of  sub- 
stance and  somehow  places  a  lot  of  attributes  in  the 
mind  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  the  phenomenal  world 
appear  as  it  does.  It  takes  the  side  of  multiplicity  or 
difference  and  holds  it  apart  from  unity. 

The  third  of  these  theories  is  the  more  modern  and 


39 

concerns  itself  with  the  fact  that  matter  is  the  unity  of 
and  in  things.  It  holds  that  a  thing  is  a  dynamic  inter- 
relation of  qualities,  the  unity  being  ideal.  There  is 
then  no  unity  of  substance  apart  from  the  qualities,  the 
unity  is  simply  the  fact  that  the  qualities  after  all  have 
one  end  or  function  to  which  they  are  all  subordinate. 
To  understand  this  theory  is  to  understand  •philoso- 
fhy. 

To  which  of  these  theories  does  Berkeley  adhere? 
Certainly  not  to  the  first,  for  such  a  conception  of  the 
external  world  was  to  him  a  contradiction,  and  lacked 
ail  the  elements  of  true  philosophy.  Neither  can  he  be 
classed  with  the  second,  for  unity  would  then  be  a  mere 
fiction  of  the  mind  made  up  for  the  purpose  of  explain- 
ing permanence  in  the  external  world ;  it  would  rob 
him  of  his  unity  and  by  so  doing  destroy  the  possibility 
of  experience  or  of  an  external  world  at  all.  He  could 
not  be  classed  with  the  third  for  his  source  of  unity  was 
postulated,  and  consisted  of  an  unrealized  system, 
rather  than  a  formulated  and  realized  or  philosophic 
system  of  synthesis  by  which  a  unity  is  made  rather 
than  given.  He  is  a  cross  between  the  second,  the 
Abstractly  Subjective  theory,  and  the  third  which  we 
may  call  the  theory  of  Dynamic  Inter-relation,  with  the 
constant  tendency  of  his  philosophy,  as  set  forth  in  his 
Commonplace  Book  toward  the  latter.  The  more  he 
studied  the  great  problem  of  philosophy  the  more  he 
gave  up  the  Abstractly  Subjective  theory  and  swung 
round  toward  the  theory  of  Dynamic  inter-relation,  and 


4° 

even  approached  it  so  far  as  to  express  in  an  isolated 
way  nearly  all  its  underlying  principles. 

The  question  between  the  materialist  and  me,  says 
Berkeley,  "is  not  whether  things  have  a  real  existence 
out  of  the  mind  of  this  or  that  person,  but,  whether 
they  have  an  absolute  existence  distinct  from  being  per- 
ceived by  God,  and  external  to  all  mind."  There  is  no 
difference  between  this  doctrine  of  existence  and  that  of 
the  third  theory  above  referred  to  except  the  mere  fact 
that  Berkeley  uses  the  word  God  instead  of  Intelligence 
or  Self-consciousness,  which  the  school  of  the  dynamic 
theory  would  have  used,  in  order  that  they  might  not 
be  charged  with  dogmatism.  The  metaphysical  princi- 
ple is  just  the  same,  and  the  ultimate  end  sought  by 
Berkeley  and  the  advocates  of  the  dynamic  theory  was 
the  same.  They  differed  only  in  their  methods  of 
attaining  the  end.  When  the  latter  attempt  to  explain 
the  origin  of  self-consciousness-in-itself,  or  the  origin  of 
the  thing-in-itself,  or  if  they  deny  the  existence  ot  these 
factors  in  themselves  and  attempt  to  explain  the  origin 
of  the  unity  of  which  these  factors  are  component  parts 
they  are  driven  back  to  Berkeley's  God  or  landed  in 
hopeless  chaotic  agnosticism. 

"Sense  and  Experience  acquaint  us  with  the  course 
and  analogy  of  appearances  or  natural  effects. 
Thought,  Reason,  Intellect  introduce  us  into  the 
knowledge  of  their  causes.  Sensible  appearances, 
though  of  a  flowing,  unstable,  and  uncertain  nature, 
yet  having  first  occupied  the  mind,  they  do  by  an  early 


41 

prevention  render  the  aftertask  of  thought  more  diffi- 
cult;  and,  as  they  amuse  the  eyes  and  ears,  and  are 
more  suited  to  vulgar  uses  and  the  mechanic  arts  of 
life,  they  early  obtain  a  preference,  in  the  opinion  of 
most  men,  to  those  superior  principles,  which  are  the 
later  growth  of  the  human  mind,  arrived  to  maturity 
and  perfection,  but,  not  affecting  the  corporeal  sense, 
are  thought  to  be  so  far  deficient  in  point  of  solidity  and 
reality — sensible  and  real,  to  common  apprehensions, 
being  the  same  thing.  Although  it  be  certain  that  the 
principles  of  science  are  neither  objects  of  Sense  nor 
Imagination  ;  and  that  Intellect  and  Reason  are  alone 
the  sure  guides  to  truth."1 

In  this  expression  of  Berkeley's  later  philosophy  he 
shows  the  importance  of  the  faculty  of  Reason,  in  our 
knowledge.  The  universal  laws  which  make  mathe- 
matics and  physics  reducible  to  a  science  are  not  ob- 
jects of  sense,  nor  of  imagination.  However  he  does 
not  drop  out  the  element  of  sense,  for  if  he  did  he 
would  destroy  experience,  without  which  there  could 
be  no  such  thing  as  knowledge.  Prof.  Fraser  in  com- 
menting on  the  section  here  referred  to,  observes  that 
Berkeley  speaks  lightly  of  the  reality  of  sensible  things. 
Prof.  Fraser  for  the  most  part  shows  a  very  comprehen- 
sive and  accurate  knowledge  of  Berkeley's  philosophy 
but  certainly  has  not  grasped  the  meaning  of  the  sec- 
tion under  discussion.  Berkeley  has  shown,  prior  to 
the  production  of  this  later  work,  by  his  New  Theory 

1  Siris.     Sec.  264. 


42 

of  Vision,  and  by  his  Theory  of  Visual  Language,  that 
the  organs  of  sense  are  not  always  accurate  interpreters 
of  things  presented  to  us  under  the  laws  and  conditions 
of  perception,  and  that  furthermore  the  same  organ  of 
sense  under  different  circumstances  and  under  varied 
conditions  will  interpret  a  thing  one  way  at  one  time 
and  in  a  different  way  at  another  time,  the  apparent  in- 
stability and  uncertainty  of  such  reality  is  therefore  the 
result  of  the  way  you  modify  the  conditions  of  percep- 
tion and  not,  as  Prof.  Fraser  observes,  a  depreciation  of 
the  reality  of  the  thing  itself;  the  view  is  then  in  per- 
fect harmony  with  his  former  view  of  reality  and  needs 
no  reconciliation.  If  Berkeley  had  changed  his  view 
of  reality  as  Prof.  Fraser  suggests,  he  must  have 
changed  his  view  of  the  unchangeableness  of  God,  for 
such  a  change  could  only  come  about  by  the  oscillation 
of  the  Will  of  God  ;  such  a  charge  would  be  an  insult 
to  the  memory  of  the  Philosopher,  and  Prof.  Fraser  did 
not  mean  to  make  such  a  charge,  he  simple  missed  the 
meaning  that  Berkeley  meant  to  convey  in  the  passage 
under  consideration. 

In  the  process  of  knowledge  thus  developed  and  the 
Unity  arrived  at  by  making  Will  a  synthetic  activity, 
Berkeley  has  not  attempted  to  separate  the  Will  from 
the  Reason,  but  has  given  Reason  its  legitimate  place 
in  knowledge  which  when  taken  in  connection  with 
what  precedes  shows  Berkeley  to  have  been  much  less 
dogmatical  than  his  critics  would  have  us  believe  him 
to  have  been.  Let  us  then  examine  Reason  and  see 


43 

whether  we  can  find  in  it  that  gradation  of  faculties  or 
activities  by  which  the  Deity  is  postulated  as  the  high- 
est category  in  knowledge,  or  in  which  the  Deity  must 
ultimately  become  the  highest  category  in  knowledge. 
It  is  necessary  to  pass  through  reason,  to  reach  the 
highest  category,  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
Will  from  its  very  nature  as  a  synthetic  activity,  and 
from  its  connection  with  the  Divine  Will  underlies 
Reason  and  renders  it  efficient  in  knowledge  just  the 
same  as  it  underlies  other  activities  of  the  mind.  What 
follows  therefore  in  respect  to  Reason  must  not  be  taken 
as  isolated  from  Will  but  only  as  one  movement  in  the 
activity  of  Will. 

Sense  perceptions1  introduce  us  to  the  fact  that  we 
have  an  external  world  around  us,  and  that  out  of  that 
external  existence  or  rather  by  observation  of  it,  we  dis- 
cover certain  unalterable  laws,  but  this  is  not  a  satis- 
factory knowledge  of  things,  we  are  not  sure  that  the 
laws  are  unalterable,  our  observation  may  not  be  suffi- 
cient to  justify  us  in  saying  that  what  we  have  observ- 
ed will  always  under  all  conditions  be  the  same  or  even 
under  the  same  conditions  will  never  change.  We  are 
not  sure  we  can  universalize  with  certainty  what  we 
have  postulated.2  There  must  be  another  element  viz., 
Reason.  Reason  is  the  judge  on  the  bench  in  Berke- 
ley's intellectual  world.3  Reason  introduces  us  to  the 
possibility  of  the  universal  laws  which  we  think  we 

1  Sins,  Sec.  264,  Selections  H.,  P.  330. 

2  Introduction  to  Selections,  P.  XXIII. 

3  Siris,  Sec.  303. 


44 

have  discovered  from  mere  observation;1  through  the 
faculty  of  reason  we  are  able  to  look  into  the  causes  of 
all  empirical  knowledge.  Reason  forms  the  perman- 
ent in  knowledge,  while  sensations  or  perceptions  are 
in  themselves  fluctuating  and  unstable.  Reason  also 
sits  in  judgment  on  the  imaginations,  and  enables  us  to 
determine  what  is  a  mere  imaginary  fancy  and  to 
separate  it  from  what  is  permanent  in  the  objective 
world.  The  former  is  nothing  more  than  a  dream  and 
has  not  sufficient  coherence  to  fulfill  the  conditions  of 
perception  even  when  it  appears  in  the  imagination  for 
the  first  time  ;  and  under  no  conditions  can  a  fanciful 
image  be  reproduced  in  the  mind  as  it  was  first  given. 
The  latter  constitutes  the  objective  world  in  its  reality 
and  has  sufficient  coherence  to  fulfill  the  conditions  of 
perception.  It  is  ideally  real  and  permanent.  The 
acts  of  Reason  by  which  knowledge  is  made  permanent 
become  new  objects  to  the  understanding ;  in  them  we 
find  the  graduation  of  the  faculties  leading  us  from  a 
lower  to  a  higher  plane  of  knowledge  until  we  reach 
the  highest  which  is  the  Deity.2  This  process  which  is 
implied  and  partly  developed  in  the  Siris  and  practi- 
cally outlined  in  the  Commonplace  Book  is  a  process 
of  knowledge  not  widely  different  in  its  application  to 
the  understanding  from  the  categories  of  Kant,  and 
even  going  far  beyond  Kant  in  reaching  the  highest 
category.  Kant  stops  with  the  category  of  reciprocity 
and  leaves  himself  in  a  contradiction  with  respect  to  the 

1  Siris,  Sec.  264. 

3  Siris,  Sec.  303.    Selections,  n.,  P.  345. 


45 

knowledge  of  self-consciousness ;  later  philosophers 
have  carried  Kant's  principles  much  further  and  have 
made  purpose,  self-consciousness,  etc.,  categories  and 
continuing  in  the  same  process  must  find  the  highest 
category  in  the  Deity.  Berkeley  did  this  long  before 
but  did  not  formulate  it. 

With  Berkeley,  nature  is  "reason  immersed  in  mat- 
ter." Philosophy  is  the  endeavor  fully  to  disengage 
the  immanent  reason.1  Philosophy  does  not  attempt  to 
disengage  reason,  and  set  it  over  against  matter  thus 
making  two  abstractions  and  forming  a  dualism  with 
such  a  chasm  between  the  two  elements  as  to  render 
the  possibility  of  unity  hopeless,  but  to  disengage  the 
immanent  reason  for  the  purpose  of  giving  it  a  greater 
leverage  and  to  enable  it  to  transform  matter  and  mind 
into  one  comprehensive  ideal  unity  which  may  contain 
two  elements  one  involved  in  the  other  with  such  a 
complete  synthesis  that  absolutely  no  dualism  will 
appear. 

Prof.  Morris  said  of  Berkeley,  "He  saw  perfectly 
well  that  it  makes  a  world-wide  difference  whether,  as 
a  so-called  idealist,  you  find  the  absolute  radical  and 
essence  of  universal  being  in  living,  knowable  spirit,  or 
in  an  unliving  and  intrinsically  unknowable  something, 
conventionally  termed — Matter.  In  the  former  is  given 
a  vital  principle,  possessed  of  a  faculty,  to  wit,  Reason, 
capable  of  accounting  for  the  visible  order  and  invari- 
able law  of  concrete  phenomena,  and  of  a  power, 

1  Berkeley-Blackwood's  Classics,  P.  206. 


46 

namely,  Will  competent  to  be  the  source  of  the  incess- 
ant motive  of  phenomena,  or  of  their  miscalled  forces."1 

Berkeley's  Reason  like  that  of  Kant  leads  us  to  the 
highest  possible  unity  in  knowledge,  viz.,  the  Deity. 
He  says,  "there  may  be  demonstrations  used  even  in 
Divinity.  I  mean  revealed  Theology,  as  contradisting- 
uished from  natural ;  for  though  the  principles  may  be 
founded  in  faith  yet  this  hinders  not  but  that  legitimate 
demonstrations  might  be  built  thereon.  Provided  still 
that  we  define  the  words  we  use,  and  never  go  beyond 
our  ideas.  .  .  .  But  to  pretend  to  reason  or  demon- 
strate any  thing  about  the  Trinity  is  absurd.  Here  an 
implicit  faith  becomes  us."2 

Having  thus  briefly  pointed  out  the  process  by  which 
Berkeley  would  lead  us  through  the  various  stages  in 
the  process  of  knowledge,  let  us  turn  for  a  few  moments 
to  the  active  principle  of  knowledge  as  found  in  the 
Critique  of  Pure  Reason  by  Kant. 


1  British  Thoughts  and  Thinkers,  P.  216. 

2  Commonplace  Book,  PP.  438-439. 


III. 

KANT'S   TRANSCENDENTAL   EGO. 

In  attempting  to  examine  the  Transcendental  Ego  of 
Kant  as  a  factor  in  knowledge  it  is  necessary  for  us  to 
free  our  minds  if  possible  of  the  concept  of  the  Ego  as 
an  object.  Indeed  we  must  free  our  minds  of  any  con- 
cept at  all,  for  a  concept  is  just  the  thing  it  is  not.  It  is 
a  thinking  activity.  "Through  this  I  or  He  or  It  (the 
thing)  which  thinks,"  Kant  says,  "nothing  is  set  before 
our  consciousness  except  a  transcendental  subject^x."1 

In  order  to  define  to  some  extent  this  thingless  thing 
or  activity  let  us  examine  some  of  the  phrases  or  terms 
which  represent  it.  It  has  been  called  the  "I,"  the 
"I  Think,"  the  "Absolute  Unity  of  Thinking  Subject," 
the  "Unity  of  Pure  Self-consciousness,"  the  "Self 
Originative  and  Self  Illuminative  Act  or  Activity,"  the 
"Original  Synthetic  Unity  of  Apperception,"  the 
"Transcendental  Unity  of  Apperception,"  the  "Orig- 
inal Primary  Apperception,"  "Pure  Apperception," 
"Transcendental  Self,"  etc.  The  various  shades  of 
meaning  which  these  predicates  present  to  our  minds 
show  us  something  of  the  difficulty  arising  out  of  an 
attempt  to  define  a  thing  which  is  no-thing. 

The  transcendental  self  is  the  functional  unity  back 

1  Critical  Philosophy  of  Kant.     By  Caird.     Vol.  II, 


M-<4- 


48 

of  all  knowledge  and  works  through  the  individual.  It 
is  a  synthetic  activity  which  makes  experience  by  mak- 
ing a  complete  unity. 

The  fact  that  we  speak  of  a  synthetic  unity  implies, 
at  least,  something  to  unite ;  this  something  when  de- 
fined will  be  found  to  be  the  I  and  the  external  world. 
This  gives  us  the  starting  point  of  Metaphysics.  We 
cannot  say  I  am  I  until  we  reach  this  stage,  neither  can 


we  have  metaphysics  until  we  can  say  I  am  I ;  for  until 
we  are  able  to  separate  the  I  from  the  world  we  are 
completely  overwhelmed  by  the  world.  We  can  neither 
criticize  the  world  nor  judge  of  it  until  we  are  able  to 
get  outside  of  it,  i.  e.,  until  we  are  able  to  separate  our- 
selves from  the  world  and  set  ourselves  over  against 
the  world.  But  having  made  such  a  separation  we 
have  not  reached  the  ultimatum  in  knowledge.  We 
have  only  begun  the  freedom  of  thought ;  if  we  were 
to  stop  here  we  should  be  in  slavery  so  far  as  intelli- 
gence is  concerned.  That  is  if  thought  found  here  a 
resting  place  where  it  could  stand  still,  it  would  be  in 
abject  slavery,  there  would  be  no  further  movement 
possible  for  thought;  but  such  is  not  the  case,  it  isl 
necessary  for  us  to  get  outside  the  world  in  order  that  ' 
we  may  be  able  to  lift  the  world  up  to  our  own  standard.  / 
It  does  not  follow  from  this  that  there  is  a  dualism  and 
that  the  I  set  over  against  the  external  world  is  entirely 
foreign  to  the  external  world.  It  does  not  of  necessity 
imply  a  dualism  fundamentally,  but  it  does  imply  that 
we  can  have  no  metaphysical  starting  place  until  the 


49 

movement  of  thought  has  reached  that  stage  in  which 
by  process  of  analysis  of  the  original  reality  it  is  able 
to  make  such  division  and  set  the  one  over  against  the 
other.  When  the  analysis  of  the  original  reality  has 
been  made  and  we  have  set  thought  over  against  matter,  ^ 
have  we  entirely  separated  thought  from  the  material 
world  and  made  it  capable  of  acting  within,  itself?  This 
gives  rise  to  the  question,  is  thought  analytic?  Descar- 
tes said  cogito  ergo  sum  and  in  the  statement  made 
thought  purely  analytic ;  he  did  more  than  that,  he 
rendered  the  Self  knowable  in  the  sense  that  the 
Kantian  categories  could  be  applied  to  it,  for  "without- 
some  empirical  representation,  which  presents  to  the 
mind  material  for  thought,  the  judgment  4I  think'  could 
not  be  formed."1  Descartes'  proposition  reduces  to  the 
form  "I  am  thinking"  or  that  "I  exist  thinking,"  he 
"was  wrong  in  inferring  the  I  exist  from  the  I  think,  x 
for  his  major  premise  must  be  every  thinking  being 
exists,  which  would  not  be  true,  as  it  would  assert  that 
the  property  thought  constitutes  all  beings  possessing  it 
necessary  beings."2  The  criticism  Kant  offers  on  Des- 
cartes' proposition  is  not  a  criticism  against  the  fact  that 
thought  was  and  is  analytic,  but  against  the  proposition 
as  being  one  which  objectifies  the  transcendental  self; 
this  could  not  be  true  in  the  system  of  Kant  as  he  pro-  * 
ceeds  to  prove.  That  Descartes'  proposition  made  the  frvva^^fr 
self  determinable  by  the  categories  follows  from  the  fact  JL/-C  H#\ 

1  Kant's  Critical  Philosophy.     By  Mahaffy.    P.  272. 
*      "  "  "  "  «          P.  273. 


50 

that  to  say  'I  exist  thinking'  expresses  "more  than  the 
spontaneity  of  pure  thought;"  it  expresses,  "in  fact, 
a  determination  of  the  subject  as  present  to  itself  in  per- 
ception."1 "If  on  the  other  hand,  I  concentrate  my 
attention  upon  the  mere  logical  function  of  thought — 
"the  pure  spontaneity  of  the  combination  of  the  mani- 
fold of  a  merely  possible  perception,  either  as  I  am  or 
as  I  appear  to  myself,  but  I  am  thinking  of  myself  only 
as  I  might  think  of  any  object  from  the  manner  of  the 
perception  of  which  I  abstract.  If,  then,  I  represent 
myself  in  this  point  of  view  as  a  subject  of  thought,  or 
even  as  a  ground  of  thinking,  this  does  not  mean  that  I 
i  apply  to  myself  the  categories  of  substance  and  causal- 
v  ity  ;  for  these  categories  are  not  the  bare  conceptions 
of  subject  and  ground,  but  these  functions  of  thought 
as  already  applied  to  our  sensuous  perception.  Now, 
such  application  of  the  categories  would,  indeed,  be 
necessary  if  I  wished  to  know  myself  as  an  object 
through  them.  But,  exhypothesi^  I  wish  to  be  con- 
scious of  myself  only  as  a  thinking  subject,  I,  therefore, 
set  aside  the  consideration  of  how  I  am  given  to  myself 
in  perception  (which  may,  indeed,  present  me  to  my- 
self, though  only  as  phenomenon.)  And  thus,  in  the 
consciousness  of  myself  in  mere  thought,  I  come  back 
upon  the  being  which  for  me  underlies  all  being  (bin 
ich  das  Wesen  selbst),  but  which  is  not  thereby  given 
in  such  a  way  that  thought  can  determine  it."2  The 

1  Critical  Philosophy  of  Kant.     By  Caird.    Vol.  II,  P^^OX" —    f  • 
3        "  "  "        "         "         "        Vol.  II,  PP.  29-30. 


51 

self  Descartes  set  forth  was  the  empirical  self  and  was 
an  object  among  so  many  other  objects  and  not  the  self 
that  knows.  The  self  that  knows  is  transcendental  and 
is  itself  unknowable  but  is  thinkable. 

Kant's  criticism  as  has  been  said  was  not  made  on 
Descartes  because  the  latter  held  that  thought  was 
analytic  and  therefore  independent  of  the  material 
world,  but  because  Descartes  made  the  self  one  object 
among  other  objects,  and  made  it  possible  to  apply  the 
categories  to  it.  That  the  criticism  was  on  this  basis  is 
clear  for  Kant  himself  held,  erroneously  as  we-  shall 
see,  that  thought  was  analytic,  and  that  it  was  set  over 
against  the  manifold  and  that  the  manifold  was  an 
entirely  foreign  element  which  must  in  some  way  be 
brought  in  contract  with  the  self  or  with  thought,  and 
that  thought  and  the  manifold  were  to  be  exploded  and 
in  the  explosion  they  would  be  united  into  a  new  and 
third  thing  viz.,  knowledge  or  experience,  just  as 
Oxygen  and  Hydrogen  exploded  together  make  a  new 
and  third  substance — water.  But  in  order  that  oxygen 
and  hydrogen  be  exploded  and  we  get  a  third  sub- 
stance, water,  there  must  be  applied  the  active  energy, 
heat.  So  with  the  former  in  order  that  thought  and  the 
manifold  may  be  exploded  into  knowledge  there  must 
be  present  the  energy  or  activity  which  Kant  calls  the 
Transcendental  Self  or  Unity  of  Apperception. 

We  shall  understand  more  fully  the  nature  of  this 
activity  if  we  compare  it  with  the  noumenorT^nd  dis- 
tinguish it  from  the  EcrfpiricalseJJP  The  empirical  self 


52 

is  the  self  we  know  and  not  the  self  that  knows,  it  is 
simply  one  object  among  so  many  other  objects  with 
this  scientific  inferiority  that  it  is  an  object  of  inner 
sense  only  and  we  cannot  therefore  apply  to  it  those 
mathematical  appliances  which  can  be  applied  to  exter- 
nal objects.  The  fact  that  there  is  not  a  sufficient  uni- 
versal or  thread  of  unity  in  the  empirical  self  to  make 
it  a  sure  basis  for  a  pure  science,  renders  a  pure  science 
of  Empirical  Psychology  impossible.  The  empirical 
self  is  a  unity,  but  it  is  only  a  unity  in  any  one  experi- 
ence and  not  a  unity  which  makes  experiences  into  an 
experience.  It  is  a  ready  made  unity  at  any  given  time, 
it  is  the  self  Hume  had  constantly  in  mind  in  the  devel- 
opment of  his  philosophy.  But  the  transcendental  self 
^  is  the  unity  of  thought  involved  in  knowledge,  it  is  a 
subject  of  thought  but  not  an  object  of  knowledge ;  it 
is  not  an  object  at  all,  if  it  were  it  would  be  subject  to 
the  forms  of  time  and  space.  Every  object  is  subject  to 
the  forms  of  time  and  space  and  must  have  a  sensuous 
content  and  be  determinable  by  the  categories.  This  is 
just  what  the  transcendental  ego  is  not ;  it  is  not  subject 
to  the  forms  of  time  and  space,  it  does  not  have  a  sen- 
suous content,  it  is  not  determinable  by  the  categories, 
but  it  is  on  the  other  hand  the  source  of  the  categories,  it 
is  logically  the  basis  of  the  possibility  of  experience  and 
cannot  be  thought  of  as  an  object  among  other  objects. 
It  was  just  this  fact,  this  reducing  the  transcendental! 
self  to  an  object  and  then  calling  that  object  a  soul  that 
led  to  the  fallacies  of  Rational  Psychology  which  Kant ;' 


53 

sets  forth  in  his  Paralogisms.  Again  the  transcendental 
self  cannot  be  thought  an  object  among  other  objects 
for  of  itself  and  in  itself  it  is  a  mere  abstraction,  it  is 
empty  of  all  content,  and  so  long  as  we  stay  in  this 
mere  empty  abstraction  we  cannot  get  a  conception  of 
an  object  at  all ;  neither  can  we  merge  from  this  mere 
abstraction  without  the  manifold  of  sense  being  given 
for  thought  to  work  upon,  to  move  out  upon.  It  is  this 
element  or  activity  presupposed  that  renders  a  judgment 
possible,  even  the  simplest  judgment  I  am  I  would  not 
be  possible  if  there  were  not  this  presupposed  content 
given  for  thought  to  act  upon.  The  self,  then,  is 
another  way  of  saying  that  * 'thinking  thinks  some- 
thing." 

It  now  remains  for  us  to  examine  the  relation  of  the 
Transcendental  Ego  to  the  (Noumenon.  The  chapter 
in  the  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  which  leads  us  from  the 
phenomena  to  the  noumena  is  the  chapter  that  leads 
from  the  categories  of  the  understanding  to  the  Ideas 
of  reason.  This  passing  from  the  phenomena  to  the 
noumena  is  of  the  same  nature  but  of  a  higher  order 
than  the  passing  from  the  Mathematical  categories  to 
the  Dynamical  categories.  In  the  latter  Kant  does  not 
give  us  any  thing  new,  he  simply  gives  us  a  deeper  and 
truer  view  of  the  object  under  consideration.  The 
mathematical  categories  constitute  individual  phenom- 
ena, the  dynamical  categories  regulate  this  same  indi- 
vidual phenomena  and  the  two  taken  together  constitute 
experience.  Now  when  we  pass  from  the  categories 


54 

of  the  understanding  to  the  Ideas  of  Reason,  we  find 
the  Ideas  of  Reason  do  not  constitute  experience  but 
they  do  regulate  experience,  hence  they  bear  the  same 
relation  to  the  categories  of  the  understanding  that  the 
-  dynamical  categories  bear  to  the  mathematical  cate- 
IS  gories.  The  Ideas  are  necessary  postulates,  they  are, 
if  you  please,  the  categories  of  Reason.  Now,  Reason 
^  as  a  unifying  power  must  of  necessity  have  on  the  sub- 
jective side  the  unifying  element  of  self-consciousness, 
and  on  the  objective  side  the  unifying  element  or  sub- 
stratum of  phenomena.  The  former  Kant  calls  the 
Transcendental  Ego,  the  latter  the  Noumenon.  The 
former  we  have  to  some  extent  already  defined,  the 
latter  will  now  be  briefly  considered.  "The  Noume- 
non,"says  Kant,  "is  a  bounding  concept  (CrenzbegrifF), 
repressing  the  pretensions  of  sensibility,  not  invented 
at  random,  but  necessarily  and  unavoidably  connected 
with  the  limitation  of  sensibility."1  The  noumenon  is  a 
purely  negative  boundary,  a  kind  of  warning  that  there 
is  something  existing  behind  mere  phenomenon ;  it  is 
not  one  thing  bounding  another  thing,  it  is  simply  a 
bounding  concept.  We  cannot  know  the  noumenon 
any  more  than  we  can  know  the  transcendental  self. 
It  is  not  a  somewhat  to  which  categories  can  be  applied. 
The  noumenon  is  the  mental  attitude,  the  mental  stand- 
point from  which  we  look  at  an  object ;  in  this  it  differs 
from  the  Absolute  of  Spencer.  The  existence  of  the 
Absolute  of  Spencer  is  a  matter  of  knowledge.  He 

1  Kant's  Critical  Philosophy.     By  Mahaffy.     P.  227. 


55 

shows,  or  attempts  to  show,  that  all  we  know  is  relative  ; 
this  relativity  itself   necessitates  -the'  showing  that  the 
Absolute  exists  but  is  unknowable,  he  could  not  admit 
that  the  Absolute  could  not  be  a  conception  in  the  mind. 
Kant  goes   further  than  Spencer,  he  has   a  bounding 
concept,  which  is  outside  of  the  phenomenon ;  it  is  the 
standpoint  from  which  we  look  at  the  phenomenon.     In, 
Kant's  treatment  of  the  thing-in-itself  and  the  noumenon  J 
they  are  not  necessarily  the  same,  but  if  we  carry  the  / 
system  to  its    logical    conclusion,   i.    e.,   if  we    go    on  \ 
beyond  Kant  to  what  would  be  the  logical  outcome  of 
his   system  if  fully  developed,  they  become  identical. 
The  thing-in-itself  holds  the  same  relation  to  the  cate- 
gories of  the  understanding  that  the  noumenon  does  to 

the  Ideas  of  Reason.     The  transcendental   self  is  the 
\ 

unity  of  apperception,  the  source  of  all  synthesis,  the 
source  of  the  categories.  In  nearly  the  same  sense 
the  noumenon  is  the  source  of  the  Ideas  of  Reason,  or 
to  speak  more  accurately,  perhaps,  the  noumena  are 
the  Ideas  of  Reason,  the  ideals  which  can  never  be 
realized  but  which  must  be  postulated.  In  other  words, 
the  noumenon  bears  the  same  relation  to  the  Ideas  of 
Reason  that  self-consciousness  does  to  the  categories  of 
the  understanding.  The  transcendental  self  as  has 
been  said,  is  the  functional  unity  back  of  all  knowledge 
and  works  through  the  individual ;  so  far  as  it  carries 
out  its  unifying  activity  and  realizes  itself  we  have  the 
noumenon.  Noumenon  is  not  therefore  an  idea  of  faith, 
as  Kant  makes  it,  but  it  is  an  actual  existence,  it  must 


56 

exist  in  phenomenon.  The  Ideas  are  not  therefore 
mere  fancies,  they  are  higher  categories  and  in  ap- 
proaching them  we  find  no  break  in  the  logical  thought. 

We  have  observed  in  thus  briefly  defining  the  Trans- 
cendental Ego  and  comparing  it  with  the  Empirical 
Ego  and  the  Noumenon,  that  Kant  gives  us  an  imper- 
fect and  somewhat  defective  knowledge  of  it,  and  in 
order  to  get  a  knowledge  of  it  which  is  at  all  satisfactory 
we  must  go  beyond  Kant.  The  same  thing  is  true 
when  we  turn  from  the  discussion  of  what  it  is  to  the 
discussion  of  its  function  in  knowledge  which  is  the 
next  step  in  this  investigation. 

Its  function  in  knowledge,  as  has  been  indicated  in 
its  definition  is  that  of  a  synthesizing  activity.  Robert 
Adamson  says,  "No  connection  or  representation  of 
ideas  is  possible,  unless  all  of  them  can  be  accompanied 
by  the  pure  logical  form  of  self-consciousness,  I  think. 
Consciousness  of  the  unity  and  identity  of  Self  is  nec- 
essary for  all  representations,  as  otherwise  they  could 
not  be  for  me,  could  not  form  parts  of  my  experience. 
But  just  as  unity  is  not  apart  from  difference,  so  con- 
sciousness of  unity  itself  is  only  possible  if  difference, 
plurality  or  manifold  be  given."1  This  is  simply 
another  way  of  saying  that  if  we  remove  from  knowl- 
edge the  synthesizing  activity  of  the  Self  we  destroy 
the  possibility  of  experience.  The  self  is  that  synthetic 
activity  which  makes  it  possible  for  us  to  have  a  repre- 
sentation ;  remove  the  activity  of  self  and  the  /  would 

1  On  the  Philosophy  of  Kant.     By  Robert  Adamson. 


57 

become  rigidly  empirical  and  would  be  set  over  against 
the  external  world,  but  we  should  never  be  conscious 
of  it.  It  would  become  impossible  for  me  to  say  I  am 
I  for  I  could  have  no  such  consciousness,  but  Kant  held 
otherwise ;  he  thought  it  possible  to  make  the  simple 
judgment  I  am  I  but  thought  it  impossible  to  ever  move 
out  of  the  narrow  circle  thus  formed  in  that  primary 
simple  judgment.  "Kant  speaks  of  the  self  as  if  it  had 
a  sort  of  independent  reality  of  its  own,  apart  from  all 
relations  to  the  other  elements  of  knowledge.  1=1  is, 
he  says,  a  purely  analytic  proposition. "f  This  is  one 
of  the  causes  of  confusion  in  Kant's  critique,  but  we 
must  not  be  led  astray  by  it.  It  arises  with  the  idea 
that  thought  is  analytic,  but  if  we  take  Kant  in  his  true 
meaning  we  shall  not  take  such  statements  as  the  above 
to  mean  that  the  Transcendental  Ego  can  be  objectified, 
neither  can  we  think  of  it  as  having  a  content  indepen- 
dent of  the  manifold  which  is  given  as.,  it  were  for 
thought  to  work  upon. 

If  thought  were  purely  analytic  and  we  could  make 
the  simple  judgment  I  am  I,  without  the  aid  of  the 
manifold,  metaphysics  would  be  rendered  impossible. 
It  is  just  at  this  point  that  many  students  of  Kant  be- 
came confused,  and  declare  him  contradictory  and 
unintelligible :  if,  indeed,  we  were  to  accept  Kant's 
bare  statement  of  the  proposition  I  am  I  as  an  evidence 
that  thought  is  purely  analytic,  and  take  the  statement 
as  isolated  from  the  body  of  the  Critique  he  would  be 

1  Kant  and  his  English  Critics.     By  John  Watson.     P.  140. 


58 

contradictory  and  his  whole  system  on  that  basis  would 
go  to  show  that  metaphysics  is  impossible.  But  to 
understand  the  meaning  of  Kant  we  must  modify  the 
statement  that  thought  is  purely  analytic  by  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Critique  as  a  whole  which  clearly  implies 
that  synthesis  is  implicit  at  least  in  the  analytic  propo- 
sition, if  not  clearly  presupposed  in  it.  In  the  most 
critical  and  literal  interpretation  of  Kant's  analytic 
proposition  1  am  I,  it  must  still  contain  implicit  synthe- 
sis just  as  certainly  and  just  as  effectually  as  the  abstract 
Being  of  Hegel  contains  implicit  concreteness,  yet  no 
careful  student  of  Hegel  will  deny  that  his  abstract 
Being  does  contain  an  implicit  concreteness. 

The  transcendental  unity  of  apperception  was  implicit 
to  Kant  even  in  the  analytic  proposition,  and  it  was 
because  of  this  implicitness  that  Kant  thought  the  I 
could  set  itself  over  against  the  world  as  being  indepen- 
dent of  the  world  and  at  the  same  time  be  conscious  of 
the  judgment,  of  the  fact  that  it  had  set  itself  off  and 
had  not  objectified  itself,  or  made  it  possible  to  apply 
the  categories  to  it. 

-  "The  Ego  is  not  merely  a  power  of  theoretical  cog- 
nition, which  power  alone  is  treated  of  in  the  Critique 
of  Pure  Reason,  it  is  also  a  power  of  practical  acting 
or  willing,  and  finally  a  power  of  relating  its  cognitions 
to  its  willing,  or  a  power  of  judgment."1  But  before 
we  have  a  relating  power  we  must  have  something  to 
relate,  something  to  unite,  i.  e.,  we  must  have  a  condi- 

1  Journal,  Speculative  Philosophy,  Vol.  Ill,  P.  134. 


59 

tion  ;  we  can  not  have  a  condition  without  a  conditioned, 
and  the  ultimate  end  of  our  science  must  be  to  find  out  J 
what  would  be  the  outgrowth  of  the  union  of  the 
condition  and  conditioned.  The  origin  of  the  sen- 
sations in -the  Ego  was  not  the  problem  of  the  Critique 
of  Pure  Reason  so  far  as  Kant  was  concerned  with  that 
problem  ;  that  we  had  a  manifold  which  gave  us  sensa- 
tions was  granted  by  all,  just  what  that  manifold  was 
did  not  yet  concern  Kant.  The  problem  is,  how  is  it 
possible  for  us  to  get  an  experience  out  of  this  manifold 
or  how  is  it  possible  to  get  thought  and  the  manifold 
into  a  unity? 

This  unity  can  only  be  accomplished  by  the  synthetic 
unity  of  apperception,  it  is  the  synthetic  unity  of  apper- 
ception, and  without  the  consciousness  of  such  a 
synthesis  we  could  have  nothing  more  than  the  frag- 
mentary unity  which  is  the  empirical  consciousness  or 
self. 

"Necessity  is  always  founded  on  transcendental  con- 
ditions. There  must,  therefore,  be  a  transcendental 
ground  of  the  unity  of  our  consciousness  in  the  syn- 
thesis of  the  manifold  of  all  our  intuitions,  therefore  of 
all  concepts  of  objects  in  general  ....  for  the  object 
is  no  more  than  that  something  of  which  the  concept 
predicates  such  a  necessity  of  synthesis. 

"That  original  and  transcendental  condition  is  noth- 
ing else  but  what  I  call  transcendental  a-pfercej>tion. 
The  consciousness  of  oneself,  according  to  the  deter- 
minations of  our  state,  is,  with  all  our  internal  percep- 


6o 


tion,  empirical  only,  and  always  transient.  There  can 
be  no  fixed  or  permanent  self  in  that  stream  of  internal 
phenomena.  It  is  generally  called  the  internal  sense, 
or  empirical  apperception.  ...  No  knowledge  can 
take  place  in  us,  no  conjunction  or  unity  of  one  kind  of 
knowledge  with  another,  without  that  unity  of  con- 
.  sciousness  which  precedes  all  data  of  intuition  and 
without  reference  to  which  no  representation  of  objects 
is  possible.  This  pure,  original,  and  unchangeable 
consciousness  I  shall  call  Transcendental  Appercep- 
tion ."l  The  complete  unity  of  thought  and  the  manifold 
in  and  of  itself  is  not  sufficient  to  give  us  knowledge  or 
experience  but  we  must  of  necessity  be  conscious  of  the 
unity.  The  origin  of  the  manifold  must  be  left  out  of 
sight  in  order  to  fully  understand  Kant.  If  Kant  were 
driven  to  give  an  account  of  the  origin  of  the  manifold 
in  so  far  he  would  be  crowded  back  to  the  so-called 
Berkeleyan  dogmatism ;  but  Kant  is  not  concerned  with 
that  problem.  Kant's  problem  is  :  Given  a  universe — 
how  shall  we  know  it?  Where  he  goes  beyond  those 
who  preceded  him  is  in  the  use  and  application  of  the 
principle  of  apperception. 

The  synthetic  activity  or  active  principle  of  unity 
which  is  so  prominent  in  Kant's  philosophy,  requires 
something  to  be  united,  on  one  hand  the  manifold  of 
sense  and  on  the  other  various  functions  of  unity,  the 
categories,  it  is  only  because  of  these  functions  of  unity 
acting  upon  the  manifold  as  a  background  that  the  most 

1  Critique  of  Pure  Reason.     Tr.  by  Mttller.     PP.  94-95. 


6i 


simple  judgment  1=1  is  possible.  Now  in  so  far  as 
these  functions  of  unity  by  acting  upon  the  manifold  of 
sense  make  it  into  one  complete  whole  we  have  self- 
consciousness,  and  in  so  far  as  we  thus  reach  self-con- 
sciousness experience  becomes  thought  manifested. 
Kant's  categories  are  nowhere  given  to  us  as  organic 
unities,  but  through  their  functional  activity  upon  the 
manifold  of  sense  we  get  a  unity  which  is  organic.  The 
seeming  conflict  here  is  removed  when  we  realize  that 
we  actually  start  with  an  organic  unity  and  arrive  at  an 
organic  unity.  If  Kant  had  not  taught  better  than  he  . 
knew  this  would  have  been  a  serious  difficulty.  Kant 
presupposes  a  synthesis,  an  organic  unity  to  start  with, 
but  not  intentionally  on  his  part,  nevertheless  true  for 
if  he  had  not  so  done  he  could  not  have  deduced  the 
categories ;  the  categories  would  have  been  impossible 
from  Kant's  standpoint,  neither  could  we  be  conscious 
of  the  simplest  judgment,  but  with  Kant's  conception  of 
the  process  of  knowledge  he  makes  a  long  and  some- 
what circuitous  effort  to  unite  what  he  regards  as  two 
foreign  (to  each  other)  elements  in  knowledge.  Kant's 
error  arises  out  of  the  thought  of  two  things-in-them- 
selves,  an  objective  and  a  subjective ;  the  former  gives 
us  perception,  the  latter  conception.  Perception  and 
conception  therefore,  are  absolutely  separated  one  from 
the  other  and  must  be  united.  The  synthesis  of  imagi- 
nation must  be  brought  into  play  before  the  unity  of 
apperception  can  complete  the  ultimate  unity  desired. 
By  this  process  Kant  succeeded  in  doing  away  with  the 


62 


dualism  of  perception  and  conception  as  such  but  not  with 
the  dualism  of  the  perceptive  and  conceptive  elements  in 
knowledge.  This  process  unifies  the  external  world  and 
brings  it  into  self-consciousness,  and  thus  enables  us  to 
know  it,  but  no  more.  The  categories  are  here  brought 
to  a  stand-still,  they  can  go  as  high  as  the  category  of 
reciprocity  and  no  higher ;  the  moment  we  go  beyond 
that,  that  moment  we  leave  the  domain  of  the  knowable 
for  the  domain  of  the  unknowable.  We  know  that 
there  is  a  self-consciousness,  without  which  there  can 
be  no  knowledge,  but  we  cannot  know  the  self-con- 
sciousness. We  must  think  self-consciousness,  freedom, 
immortality,  and  God,  but  we  can  know  nothing  of 
them. 

The  chief  sources  of  confusion  in  the  study  of  the 
Critique  of  Pure  Reason  are  (a)  Kant  held  that  thought 
was  purely  analytic,  (b)  that  the  manifold  was  foreign 
to  thought  and  (c)  he  treated  the  subject  as  if  thought 
were  synthetic  and  the  manifold  a  part  of  thought. 
The  difficulties  immediately  become  apparent  when  we 
take  these  conflicting  premises  under  consideration. 
Kant  proceeds  from  the  first  of  these  premises  to  deduce 
categories  out  of  that  from  which  no  category  can  be 
had.  To  hold  that  thought  is  purely  analytic,  and  from 
that  purely  analytic  element  to  deduce  categories  which 
are  themselves  functional  activities  of  synthesis  is  itself 
a  contradiction.  The  question  naturally  arises  why  is 
it  impossible  for  us  to  deduce  the  categories  of  the  un- 
derstanding if  thought  be  analytic.  It  is  impossible 


63 

because  the  source  of  the  categories  is  the  transcen- 
dental ego  or  self-consciousness,  and  self-consciousness 
itself  is  impossible  on  the  basis  of  purely  analytic 
thought. 

The  categories  are  simply  the  tools  with  which  the 
self-consciousness  works  in  overcoming  the  external 
world,  but  if  there  were  no  consciousness  there  could 
be,  of  course,  no  methods  of  its  manifestation.  How- 
ever this  does  not  still  free  us  from  the  difficulty ;  the 
question,  why  is  self-consciousness  impossible  if  thought 
be  purely  analytic,  is  not  answered,  and  is  just  as  per- 
plexing as  to  say  the  categories  are  impossible  if 
thought  be  analytic.  Let  us  therefore  see  why  self- 
consciousness  would  be  impossible  if  thought  were 
purely  analytic.  We  cannot  be  conscious  unless  we 
are  conscious  of  something.  We  have  a  thought,  it 
may  be  true  or  false  that  is  of  no  consequence,  the 
question  is,  how  is  the  thought  determined?  does  it 
determine  itself  by  working  in  itself  or  must  it  have  a 
foreign  element  to  work  upon  or  to  work  through  in 
order  to  determine  itself  ?  Kant  would  evidently  say  the 
latter,  for  if  it  did  not  need  the  foreign  element  there  could 
be  a  judgment  formed  from  the  movement  of  thought  per 
se  ;  and  out  of  that  judgment  must  come  knowledge  and 
experience,  and  by  the  movement  of  thought  in  its  own 
determination  we  have  arrived  at  knowledge  without  a 
perception  or  even  the  form  of  a  perception,  which  is 
contradictory  to  Kanfs  whole  philosophic  doctrine. 
Such  could  not  be  the  movement  of  thought  within 


64 

itself  without  objectifying  the  transcendental  ego  and 
making  it  subject  to  the  limitations  of  the  categories ; 
this  would  reduce  us  again  to  the  Cartesian  cogito  ergo 
sum,  which  leaves  us  precisely  where  we  were  when 
Kant  took  us  and  began  to  lead  us  through  this  laby- 
rinthian  process  of  knowledge. 

Kant  was  never  able  to  free  himself  from  the  common 
conception  that  the  actual  was  somehow  given  and 
thought  worked  itself  into  this  real  somewhat. 
Thought  by  working  on  the  sensibility  gave  us  both 
perception  and  conception,  the  one  coming  from  the 
objective  side  and  the  other  coming  from  the  subjective 
side ;  these  two  elements  must  be  brought  into  a  unity 
and  we  must  be  conscious  of  the  unity  or  we  cannot 
possibly  have  an  experience  at  all.  The  transcendental 
self  was  and  is  the  activity  which  produces  this  unity, 
but  this  transcendental  ego  is  as  it  were  a  mere  focal 
point  between  the  Ego  and  the  world,  or  it  is  rather  the 
point  of  Egoity  outside  the  world  looking  at  the  world, 
/u/a  narere  thought  activity.  We  are  conscious  of  the  Ego 

as  separated  from  the  world  and  yet  the  world  is  due  to 

4y* 

the  synthetic  unity  of  the  self.      There   is    no   world 

except  through  the  activity  of  the  Ego  and  no  con- 
sciousness of  the  Ego  except  through  the  synthetic 
relations  which  the  world  holds  to  the  Ego.  Kant  was 
never  able  to  get  the  Transcendental  Ego  out  of  itself 
and  get  the  world  into  it.  It  was  because  of  this  fact 
that  Kant's  doctrine  of  the  Transcendental  Ego  was  not 
satisfactoiy  to  philosophers  who  followed  him. 


65 

The  fact  that  Kant  treated  thought  as  a  necessary 
element  in  knowledge  and  yet  made  it  purely  analytic 
confuses  us  from  the  fact  that  we  cannot  conceive  of  it 
as  being  purely  analytic  without  the  impossibility  of 
being  able  to  make  the  simple  judgment  I  am  I,  yet 
Kant  says  that  judgment  is  purely  analytic.  But  to 
Kant  this  judgment  could  not  be  made  without  in  some 
way  the  manifold,  the  world  of  sense,  becoming  a  sort 
of  background  from  which  the  I  was  distinguished  but 
which  of  itself  did  not  enter  into  the  judgment.  On 
the  other  hand,  Kant  treated  the  external  world  as  a 
thing-in-itself  which  as  such  was  entirely  foreign  to  the 
I  yet  must  be  thought,  but  until  brought  into  a  unity 
with  the  I  could  not  be  known.  This  was  the  dualism 
which  Kant  never  overcame;:  the  external  world  must 
be  thought  as  something  external  to  the  I,  and  the  I 
must  be  thought  as  something  independent  of  the  world  ; 
yet  we  could  not  know  that  either  existed  without  the 
other,  neither  could  we  have  an  experience  without  the 
union  of  the  two  and  at  the  same  time  have  a  con- 
sciousness of  the  union.  By  the  function  assigned  to 
the  Transcendental  Ego  Kant  succeeded  in  doing  away 
with  the  dualism  of  the  elements  of  perception  and  con- 
ception arising  respectively  from  the  manifold  and  from 
thought,  but  he  never  succeeded  in  doing  away  with 
the  dualism  of  the  elements  of  perception  and  concep- 
tion in  knowledge.  While  Kant's  philosophy  was  a 
great  advance  on  anything  that  had  preceded  him,  in 
the  solution  of  the  problems  of  knowledge,  he  did  not 


66 


reach  the  ultimate  principle.  He  left  a  great  question 
unsolved — the  relation  of  the  Transcendental  Ego  to  the 
Empirical  Ego.  The  Transcendental  Ego  was  to  Kant 
the  ultimate  principle  and  he  attempted  to  show  its 
relation  to  experience  ;  it  existed  only  as  it  connected 
elements  of  experience,  and  where  it  connected  them  it 
was  a  mere  thought  point,  or  activity,  a  kind  of  focus 
and  can  be  nothing  more  so  far  as  our  knowledge  of  it 
is  concerned.  It  can  never  reflect  the  self  to  us  ;  it  can 
never  give  the  self  back  to  us  in  any  knowable  way. 
From  its  very  nature  it  hampers  itself,  reduces  itself  to 
a  mere  point  which  is  necessary  and  thinkable,  yet 
which  cannot  be  reflected  or  given  back  to  us  and  which 
must  forever  remain  unknowable.  It  is  because  of  this 
view  that  Kant's  highest  category  must  be  that  of 
reciprocity. 


IV. 


POINTS    OF    RESEMBLANCE    AND    DIFFERENCE   COMPARED 
AND    CONTRASTED. 

Berkeley  has  not  received  the  credit  due  him  for  his 
philosophic  thought,  simply  because  of  his  dogmatical 
statements.  He  did  not  systematize  the  great  principles 
he  postulated.  Mere  analytic  knowledge  was  impossible 
with  Berkeley  but  he  did  not  stop  to  prove  that  such 
was  the  case.  His  acceptation  of  the  Will  practically 
makes  such  a  proof  unnecessary.  He  regards  the  proof 
of  the  existence  of  God  as  set  forth  in  his  Divine  Visual 
Language,  as  conclusive,  and  this  supplemented  by  the 
Scriptural  revelation  seemed  to  Berkeley  to  be  sufficient 
even  to  convince  a  sceptic  that  God  existed  and  in  Him 
were  all  the  attributes  or  factors  of  a  perfect  intelli- 
gence. Even  accepting  that  God  .is  all  that  Berkeley 
claims  Him  to  be,  Berkeley  still  fails  from  a  philosophic 
standpoint  in  so  far  as  he  does  not  systematize  the 
process  of  knowledge  even  as  given  to  us  through  the 
postulated  principles.  He  would  have  approached  a 
system  of  knowledge  had  he  succeeded  in  developing 
the  Will  as  he  anticipated  doing,  but  even  then  he  was 
assuming  certain  Divine  principles  which  were  dog- 
matic rather  than  philosophic. 

The  chief  point  of  failure  in  Berkeley's  system  was 


68 


that  he  started  with  one  thing-in-itself,  subjective  spirit, 
and  made  the  activity  of  God's  Will  the  efficient  cause 
of  the  same,  and  not  only  the  mere  cause  but  the  active 
principle  through  which  this  subjective  thing-in-itself 
had  activity  and  through  which  it  was  possible  to  obtain 
a  knowledge  of  the  universe.  He  made  the  same  active 
principle  of  Divine  Will  the  efficient  cause  of  the  real 
objective  world  but  at  the  same  time  denied  that  there 
was  an  objective  thing-in-itself.  Now  how  the  same 
efficient  cause  or  Divine  activity  produced  a  subjective 
thing-in-itself,  and  gave  it  activity,  and  produced  an 
objective  reality  which  was  not  a  thing-in-itself,  and 
had  no  activity  was  what  Berkeley  did  not  express  or 
attempt  to  explain.  He  took  it  for  granted,  with  his 
conception  of  the  Will,  that  such  an  explanation  was 
not  necessary.  The  acceptation  of  God's  existence  was 
all  that  was  necessary  to  him  and  for  this  very  reason 
he  has  been  classed,  and  justly  too,  with  the  dogmatists. 

Berkeley  meant  to  show  that  the  Will  was  the  essence 
of  spirit  substance  and  also  of  material  substance ;  but 
because  he  never  reached  a  clear  vision  of  the  process 
by  which  he  could  make  Will  play  this  specific  part  in 
the  unity  of  the  universe,  and  the  unity  of  the  perfect 
intelligence  of  the  same,  he  never  gave  to  the  world  his 
deepest  and  most  critical  philosophic  work,  viz.,  A 
Treatise  on  the  Human  Will. 

The  reason  of  Berkeley's  failure  may  be  given  in  a 
single  sentence.  He  failed  to  grasp  the  idea  and  to 
apply  the  Dialectic  in  philosophical  reasoning.  His 


69 

Philosophy  was  hidden  behind  his  Theology,  and  he 
feared  to  cut  himself  loose  from  his  Theology  and  to 
enter  into  a  process  of  purely  philosophical  reasoning 
lest  the  result  would  be  in  discord  with  the  revealed 
idea  of  God ;  he  chose  therefore  to  hold  tenaciously  to 
the  notion  he  had  of  God  from  the  Biblical  revelation 
and  by  process  of  formal  rather  than  real  Logic  to  make 
men  accept  his  premises.  He  therefore  postulated  his 
premises  rather  than  logically  made  them,  and  by  so 
doing  laid  himself  liable  to  the  charge  of  dogmatism. 

Kant's  advance  on  Berkeley  was  in  bringing  Philoso- 
phy out  from  behind  the  veil  of  Theology,  and  in 
applying  the  Dialectic  to  it.  Kant  sought  the  truth  for 
its  own  sake  whether  or  not  it  came  in  harmony  with 
preconceived  theological  notions.  If  one  was  true  and 
the  other  was  not  the  process  of  real  Logic  and  the 
Dialectic  must  drive  the  false  one  to  the  wall.  Whether 
Kant's  philosophy  is  true  or  not,  it  is  -philosophy.  He 
made  his  premises  and  put  the  dialectic  into  his  system. 
Philosophy  is  a  system  and  that  is  what  Kant  had  that 
Berkeley  did  not  have,  and  just  so  far  as  that  system 
went  Kant  as  a  philosopher  was  in  advance  of  Berkeley. 
Kant's  failure  to  grasp  the  full  movement  of  thought  lay 
in  the  fact  that  he  took  thought  to  be  purely  analytic, 
and  yet  deals  with  it  as  though  he  had  all  the  while 
presupposed  a  synthesis.  This  brings  him  before  his 
critics  as  teaching  a  contradictory  philosophy  which  he 
could  not  harmonize.  It  led  him  into  an  artificial  de- 
duction ot  the  categories  which  made  them  rigid  and 


tied  them  up  in  their  application  to  only  one-half  the 
truth,  beyond  which  Kant  could  only  think  and  not 
know.  Kant's  movement  through  the  dialectic  has 
practically  freed  him  from  the  charge  of  dogmatism. 
Yet  ultimately,  on  the  basis  of  thought  being  purely 
analytic,  he  must  have  fallen  into  precisely  the  same 
dogmatism  that  constantly  hampered  Berkeley.  Kant 
was  making  his  way  between  two  philosophical  poles, 
Dogmatism  on  the  one  hand  and  Scepticism  on  the 
other,  and  freed  himself  from  stranding  on  either  by  his 
process  of  synthesizing  perception  and  conception.  He 
could  never  have  been  wholly  free  from  the  former  had 
he  not  taught  better  than  he  knew  by  presupposing  a 
synthesis  while  he  treated  thought  as  analytic.  Another 
fundamental  error  lies  in  the  fact  that  Kant  made  his 
method  regressive  and  not  progressive.  This  logical 
error  can  be  best  expressed  by  quoting  from  Caird. 
"Now,  I  have  attempted  to  show  that  in  all  this  there  is 
only  one  logical  error,  to  wit,  the  confusion  of  the 
regressive  process  of  thought,  by  which  the  unity  of  self 
is  found  to  underlie  the  categories  and  the  forms  of 
sense,  with  a  process  of  mere  abstraction.  This  error 
necessarily  carries  with  it  the  conception  of  the  unity  of 
self-consciousness  as  purely  analytic,  and  as,  therefore, 
standing  in  irreconcilable  opposition  to  the  unity  of  the 
consciousness  of  objects  as  purely  synthetic,  i.  e.,  as 
externally  synthetic  of  the  matter  given  under  the  forms 
of  sense.  From  this,  again,  follows  the  impossibility  of 
reaching  a  knowledge  which  is  adequate  to  the  Ideas  of 


reason,  and  the  equal  impossibility  of  conceiving  the 
moral  law  as  realized  in  the  phenomenal  world.  Hence, 
also,  the  moral  law  itself  shrinks  into  the  conception  of 
law  in  general,  and  this  into  the  tautology  of  self-con- 
sistency, i.  e.,  of  consistency  with  that  which  has  in 
itself  no  determination.  And  if  a  partial  escape  is 
found  from  this  emptiness  of  abstraction  by  "typifying" 
the  moral  law  as  a  law  of  nature ;  yet  the  conception  of 
the  law  of  freedom  as  if  it  were  a  law  of  necessity  seems 
to  be  too  hopelessly  self-contradictory  to  bring  with  it 
any  real  solution  of  the  dificulty^'  l 

Our  investigation  so  far  has  been  to  find  the  active 
principle  in  knowledge  as  held  by  each  of  the  philoso- 
phers under  consideration  and  to  some  extent  to  define 
its  application  in  the  philosophical  works  which  they 
have  left  to  posterity.  We  have  also  briefly  pointed  out 
some  of  the  fundamental  defects  in  each  system.  It 
now  remains  for  us  to  call  attention  to  some  of  the  points 
of  similarity  and  dissimilarity.  Let  us  first  then  take  up 
the  points  of  likeness. 

Both  inquired  into  the  Principles  of  Human  Knowl- 
edge, and  both  inquiries  included  the  same  factors  of 
knowledge,  viz.,  Self,  the  World  and  God.  Self  and 
the  World  constituted  the  two  elements  or  factors  of 
special  inquiry  in  both  cases.  As  neither  of  the  phil- 
osophers regarded  Self  and  the  World  as  one  and  the 
same  thing,  a  dualism  arose  in  each  system.  The 
nature  of  the  dualism  constituting  one  of  the  differences 

1  Critical  Philosophy  of  Kant.     By  Caird.    Vol.  II.    P.  640. 


72 

may  be  omitted  for  the  present.  This  dualism  consti- 
tuted a  fundamental  defect  in  the  process  of  knowledge, 
hence,  both  attempted  to  free  themselves  from  this 
dualism  and  to  develop  a  process  of  knowledge  which 
would  ultimately  give  us  a  complete  unity.  The  nature 
of  the  elements  of  synthesis  constitutes  the  foregoing 
portion  of  this  discussion.  That  element  is  in  Berkeley's 
system  the  Will,  and  in  Kant's  the  Transcendental  Ego 
or  Synthetic  Unity  of  Apperception,  To  arrive  at  this 
unity  both  began  with  experience  and  both  made  a 
synthetic  activity  necessary  to  experience.  That  both 
began  with  experience  is  clear  for  Berkeley  says,  "If  it 
were  not  for  sense  the  mind  could  have  no  knowledge,' 
no  thought  at  all.  All  of  introversion,  meditation,  con- 
templation, and  spiritual  acts — as  if  these  could  be 
exerted  before  we  had  ideas  from  without  by  the  senses 
— are  manifestly  absurd."1  Kant's  whole  philosophy 
is  based  on  the  fact  that  knowledge  begins  with  experi- 
ence, and  that  the  manifold  of  sense  is  an  indispensable 
factor. 

Berkeley  holds  that  all  knowledge  is  about  ideas  but 
ideas  are  impossible  without  experience.  Kant  holds 
that  all  knowledge  begins  with  experience.  Berkeley 
says,  "all  ideas  are  from  without  or  from  within." 
Kant  holds  that  we  have  external  sense  and  internal 
sense,  and  these  express  themselves  in  the  form  of 
space  and  time.  Berkeley  holds  that  if  these  ideas 
are  from  without,  they  are  sensations, — Kant,  that  they 

1  Commonplace  Book,  P.  434. 


73 

are  perceptions,  the  manifold.  Berkeley  says,  if  they 
are  from  within  they  are  operations  of  the  mind, 
thoughts — Kant  that  they  are  conceptions,  thoughts. 
Berkeley,  all  our  ideas  (experiences)  are  either  sen- 
sations or  thoughts.  Kant,  all  our  experiences  are 
sensations  and  thoughts.1  Berkeley,  the  bare  pas- 
sive recognition  or  having  of  ideas  is  called  perception. 
Kant,  the  vague  whole  given  by  the  manifold  unana- 
lyzed  is  perception,  Berkeley,  whatever  has  in  it  an 
idea  (experience)  though  it  be  never  so  passive, 
though  it  exert  no  manner  of  act  about  it,  yet  it  must 
perceive  (think).  Kant,  whatever  has  experience 
must  have  perception  (sensations)  and  thought  com- 
bined. Berkeley,  two  things  cannot  be  said  to  be  alike 
or  unlike  till  they  have  been  compared.  Comparing  is 
the  viewing  two  ideas  together  and  marking  in  what  they 
agree  and  what  they  disagree.  The  mind  can  compare 
nothing  but  its  own  ideas.  Kant,  the  world  of  experi- 
ence can  only  be  known  by  classification  and  by  placing 
each  object  under  the  category  in  which  it  belongs.2 

In  the  above  classification  the  language  of  Berkeley 
has  been  closely  followed  and  it  shows  a  decided  paral- 
lelism in  the  fundamental  principles  with  which  both 
systems  began. 

1  This  comparison  must  be  taken  with  some  license  both  on  the  part  of  Berkeley 
and  of  Kant.  If  we  take  Berkeley's  phraseology  "sensations  or  thoughts"  as  isolated 
from  his  principle  of  synthe$is  it  indicates  sourcts  of  knowledge  and  is  in  perfect 
harmony  with  Locke's  doctrine  of  knowledge.  To  get  the  full  force  of  the  state- 
ment it  must  be  looked  at  in  the  light  of  the  prese'nt  discussion.  On  the  other 
hand,  Kant  must  be  regarded  as  using  "sensations  and  thoughts"  as  factors  in 
experience. 

3  For  above  statements  of  Berkeley  see  Commonplace  Book,  PP.  498-499. 


74 

It  is  equally  true  that  both  made  a  synthetic  activity 
necessary  to  experience.  With  Berkeley,  experience 
is  impossible  without  in  some  way  the  whole  phenome- 
non is  connected ;  without  a  connection  there  would  be 
neither  world  nor  experience.  The  true  source  is 
within  the  veil.  It  is  in  the  super-sensible  or  trans- 
cendent, not  among  phenomena  or  in  the  world  of 
phenomenal  experience.  Can  we  follow  it  within  the 
veil?  That  depends  upon  the  possibility  of  our  having 
either  a  sort  of  knowledge  that  is  unphenomenal,  or 
else  a  faith  that  transcends  both  the  data  of  the  senses 
and  faith  in  merely  physical  law.1 

This  synthetic  activity  which  makes  the  necessary 
connection  and  which  lies  behind  the  veil  is  the  Will. 
It  cannot  be  known,  but,  on  account  of  a  faith  which 
transcends  the  data  of  sense,  must  be  thought.  The 
Will  cannot  be  known,  and  yet  it  leads  us  on  in  our 
process  of  knowledge  until  we  are  as  sure  of  it  as  we 
are  of  our  own  existence,  we  have  to  think  it ;  if  we 
say  we  know,  the  knowledge  must  be  of  a  kind  unphe- 
nomenal, it  is  rather  a  transcendent  faith.  With  Kant, 
experience  is  impossible  without  the  synthesis  of  per- 
ception and  conception  and  the  consciousness  of  the 
synthetic  act ;  this  involves  the  law  of  necessary  con- 
nection. This  synthetic  activity  is  the  Transcendental 
Unity  of  Apperception.  By  attempting  to  know  this 
synthetic  activity  we  are  led  from  the  phenomenal  to 
the  noumenal  world,  in  which  we  are  unable  to  apply 

1Berkeley,  Blackwood's  Classics,  PP.  194-195. 


75 

theoretical  reason,  'because  theoretical  reason  is  bound 
down  to  the  world  of  sense ;  but  we  can  approach  it  by 
practical  reason  which  is  not  limited  by  sense.  We 
cannot  know  it,  however,  but  for  practical  reason  it  is 
enough  that  we  think  it,  and  determine  ourselves 
according  to  the  Ideas  of  it.  In  so  far  as  we  are  forced 
to  think  it  and  it  is  forced  upon  us  by  a  law  which  is 
one  with  the  consciousness  of  ourselves,  we  may  say 
we  are  as  sure  of  its  truth  as  of  our  own  existence.'1  It 
is  in  this  point  with  Kant  as  it  is  with  Berkeley,  we 
walk  by  faith  and  not  by  sight ;  this  is  one  of  the  most 
important  and  interesting  similarities  existing  in  the 
two  systems.  The  name  by  which  the  activity  is  desig- 
nated is  of  but  little  importance  in  this  discussion,  the 
real  truth  of  the  matter  is  what  we  are  seeking.  The 
difference  between  Berkeley  and  Kant  in  the  use  of  this 
active  principle  is  just  the  difference  between  induction 
and  deduction  and  nothing  more,  i.  e.,  there  is  no  strict 
line  of  demarkation.  Induction  is  the  process  of 
thought  when  we  have  in  mind  the  getting  of  a  hypoth- 
esis, and  this  was  Berkeley's  position.  "What  he 
attempted  was  done,  he  modestly  says,  with  a  view  to 
giving  hints  to  thinking  men  who  have  leisure  and 
curiosity  to  go  to  the  bottom  of  things,  and  pursue  them 
in  their  own  minds."2  That  is,  Berkeley  concerned 
himself  with  the  production  of  hypotheses  rather  than 
the  defining  of  them.  Deduction  is  defining  or  devel- 

1  Critical  Philosophy  of  Kant.     By  Caird.     Vol.  II,  P.  634. 
introduction  to  Selections,  P.  XXXIII. 


76 

oping  a  hypothesis,  and  represents  Kant's  position  in 
the  movement  of  thought;  he  explained  hypotheses, 
defined  them  and  in  his  definitions  transformed  them. 
The  true  difference  in  induction  and  deduction  is  then 
simply  different  cross-sections  in  the  same  movement  of 
thought,  or  they  are  the  same  thing  in  different  stages 
of  development.  Berkeley  and  Kant  are  related  in  the 
same  way,  Berkeley  representing  the  inductive  cross- 
section  and  Kant  the  deductive  cross-section  of  the 
movement  of  thought. 

In  summing  up  the  p6ints  of  similarity  we  may  say, 
the  inquiries  of  both  involve  the  relation  of  Self  and  the 
World ;  both  began  with  experience ;  both  had  a  dual- 
ism ;  both  sought  a  unity  ;  both  saw  the  necessity  of  a 
synthetic  activity ;  both  made  this  activity  necessary  to 
experience ;  both  made  the  active  principle  thinkable 
but  unknowable  ;  both  led  us  through  Reason  by  means 
of  a  transcendent  faith,  into  an  undoubted  assurance  of 
Immortality,  Freedom  and  God. 

We  are  not  to  assume  from  what  has  been  said,  that 
there  are  no  differences  between  Berkeley  and  Kant  as 
to  their  philosophical  systems.  The  differences  in 
many  respects  are  more  fundamental  than  their  like- 
nesses, as  will  readily  be  suggested  to  the  mind  of  the 
student  of  Berkeley  and  Kant.  I  believe  it  necessary 
only  to  call  attention  to  these  differences,  when  they 
become  sufficiently  apparent.  The  first  difference, 
which  is  a  fundamental  one,  is  found  in  the  bases  upon 
which  these  two  systems  of  philosophy  are  founded. 


77 

Berkeley  makes  metaphysics  the  key-stone  in  the  arch 
of  his  system  and  makes  all  things  in  the  phenomenal 
world  conform  to  that  theory.  Kant  makes  science  the 
basis  of  his  system  and  reasons  from  the  possibility  of 
science  to  the  possibility  of  metaphysics.  In  other 
words  Berkeley  practically  says,  metaphysics  given, 
how  is  the  world  of  science  possible?  Kant,  the  world 
of  science  given,  how  is  metaphysics  possible?  Berke- 
ley was  more  sure  of  the  existence  of  God  than  he  was 
of  the  external  world.  Kant  more  sure  of  the  existence 
of  the  external  world  than  he  was  of  the  existence  of 
God. 

Another  difference  is  in  Kant's  use  of  the  dialectic  of 
thought.  This  is  of  great  importance  in  a  system  of 
philosophy.  The  dialectic  falls  back  on  the  pure  unity 
of  thought  itself  pre-supposed  in  conceptual  synthesis. 
It  suggests  noumena  and  not  objects  of  experience,  and 
gives  rise  to  questions  which  experience  cannot  settle. 
It  is  the  process  by  which  we  are  enabled  to  go  beyond 
the  sphere  of  the  understanding  and  the  phenomenal 
world  into  the  sphere  of  reason  and  the  noumenal 
world.  The  movement  of  thought  by  which  such  a 
transition  can  be  made  is  almost  indispensable  in  the 
formation  and  carrying  out  of  a  system  of  philosophy. 
This  movement  Berkeley  never  succeeded  in  embodying 
in  his  philosophy,  but  Kant  did.  This  marks  one  of 
the  wide  differences.  Berkeley  never  succeeded  in 
getting  outside  of  his  subject,  but  from  within  he  looked 
at  it  from  this  way  and  from  that,  and  each  time  got 


78 

some  practically  new  view  of  the  question  at  issue ; 
hence,  his  system  is  largely  defective  in  method.  Kant 
got  outside  of  his  subject  and  looked  at  it  as  a  whole, 
and  each  variation  in  the  movement  shows  us  the  same 
theme  looked  at  from  a  new  standpoint,  hence,  Kant's 
system  is  methodic. 

:  They  differed  in  the  dualism  that  arose  out  of  their 
treatment  of  the  Self  and  the  external  World.  Kant's 

•  dualism  was  a  dualism  of  perception  and  conception,  a 
dualism  between  self-consciousness  and  the  manifold. 
Berkeley's  dualism,  as  has  already  been  explained, 
was  practically  a  dualism  of  concepts.  Kant's  dualism 
arose  from  getting  outside  of  his  subject  and  recogniz- 
ing two  elements  separate  and  distinct,  without  the 

-union  of  which  there  could  be  no  knowledge.  Berke- 
ley's dualism  arose  by  staying  inside  of  his  subject  and 
recognizing  two  diametrically  opposite  conditions,  spir- 
itual and  so-called  material,  which,  in  order  to  have 
knowledge,  must  be  harmonized.  Kant's  unity  is  the 
Transcendental  Ego.  Berkeley's  unity  is  the  Will. 

Finally,  they  differed  in  what  constituted  identity. 
Berkeley's  identity  is  in  reality  only  a  superficial  iden- 
tity, there  is  no  essential  reality  in  the  relation  of 
things;  relations  are  ideal,  and  that  which  constitutes 
identity  is  without  the  thing  and  independent  of  it.  The 
identity  of  Berkeley  is  like  a  thread  running  through 
things  which  holds  them  together  yet  leaves  them  inde- 
pendent. So  far  as  the  relation  of  these  things,  one  to 
another,  is  concerned  it  is  ideal.  Kant's  identity  is 
very  different,  it  is  an  underlying  identity,  an  identity 


79 

of  differences  in  which  the  relation  is  real  instead  of 
ideal.  A  quotation  from  Caird  will  serve  better  than 
my  own  language  to  show  Kant's  position  with  respect 
to  identity.  "Since,  however,  the  relations  of  the 
substances  are  represented  by  Kant  as  real  and  not 
merely  ideal,  and  since  the  substances  can  manifest 
their  nature  only  in  those  relations,  the  opposition  of 
their  individuality  to  their  relativity  is  on  the  point  of 
disappearing,  and  with  it  of  course  must  disappear  the 
externality  of  the  principle  that  unites  them.  For,  if 
the  difference  of  the  substances  be  merely  a  relative 
difference,  i.  e.,  a  difference  of  elements  which  are 
nothing  apart  from  their  relations  to  each  other,  the 
binding  principle  cannot  be  regarded  as  an  external 
link  of  connection,  but  must  be  taken  simply  as  the 
unity  which  underlies  the  differences  of  the  substances, 
and  which  manifests  itself  in  their  action  and  reaction 
upon  each  other."1 

To  sum  up  —  their  chief  differences  lie  in  the  bases 
on  which  the  systems  are  founded,  in  the  standpoints 
from  which  they  looked  at  the  subject  under  considera- 
tion, in  their  dualism,  and  in  what  constitutes  identity. 

In  conclusion,  let  us  rise  above  the  mere  method  and 
look  at  the  truth  as  each  of  those  great  philosophers 
sought  to  find  it.  We  see  Berkeley  approach  it  from 
the  side  of  metaphysics  and  write  Empirically  Ideal  and 
Transcendentally  Real.  From  the  side  of  science  Kant 
approaches  and  writes  Empirically  Real  and  Transcen- 
dentally Ideal. 

1  Critical  Philosophy  of  Kant.     3y  Caird.     Vol.  I,  p.   . :,. 


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